XPS 15 9510: 30 second delay when starting audio on Audioengine A2+

Question

I own Audioengine A2+ speakers. I was previously using these speakers with a 2017 Dell XPS 15 and they were working fine.

I purchased a 2021 Dell XPS 15 recently and connected these speakers through a Hiearcool USB hub. The reason for using this hub is that the new Dells only have Thunderbolt ports. The hub is connected to the Dell laptop through a Thunderbolt port. The speakers are connected to the hub. When I play an audio file or video file, it takes 20-50 seconds for playback to start when these speakers are connected. If the speakers are not connected, the playback starts immediately and the audio comes from the built-in speakers. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers but that did not fix the problem.

I removed the Hiearcool USB hub and used a USB hub with a power adapter. I plugged it in with a USB C to USB adapter. The USB hub was recognized and all the devices except the speakers continued to work fine. The speakers still have the 30 second delay problem. If I play a YouTube video for example, I get the whirling indicator to show the video is loading for 30 seconds.

Oddly, I didn't have this problem when I initially connected the Hiearcool hub. It started after a few hours. Also every time I reconnect the Audioengine speaker, I get a system message in the lower right of my monitor stating that the speakers are being installed.

DELL-Cares · Answer

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X24Factory · Answer

I have exactly the same issue, all USB headset or speaker connected to the new Dell XPS 9500 will not work, and System will be super slow and with a huge response delay in all functions.

Playing video or audio file will not be easy and system ia not recognizing the USB Headset at all, and in all chat Apps(Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Skype, and many other),these Apps didn't work with USB Headset at all.

Ttied to Update Windows and Drivers and still same issue.

BenAus · Answer

I have the same issue too - seem to occur when I updated my eGPU which is connected to my ThunderBolt cable.Tried updating/reinstalling audio drivers but hasn't fixed it.

azdust · Answer

I had a major issue with sound latency (lag) when connecting an XPS 17 (9710) to an external monitor with speakers (Dell S3221qs). Sometimes there would be a five second delay, sometimes almost a 30 second delay. HDMI or Displayport cables made no difference.

Unfortunately, I never received a response from Dell Support. So I never did resolve the issue. I eventually returned the unit to Costco because sound is a fundamental issue that has to work.

You can see a YouTube video of the issue here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZpRU-VzAkE

tmzl · Answer

I've got a very similar problem on XPS 9500 (i7).

After a windows update (I think), I've started to notice that it takes forever to play streaming videos, e.g. youtube - cca. 10 seconds before it is capable of playing video and audio (at least they are in sync).

The sound in Windows (10.0.19042), plays with several seconds delay - e.g. I change the sound level in the bottom right corner and the sound indication (that ping) of that change comes in like 10 seconds later.

Other stuff works fine, but this is nonetheless quite frustrating.

The current drivers weren't changed, it was working previously:

- Realtek(R) Audio, 6.0.9210.1 (changed 27.07.2021)

- NVIDIA 4Virtual Audio Device (Wave Extensible) (WDM), 4.13.0.0. (changed 14.03.2019)

Anyone got an update or tried any solutions?

I haven't got the time to play with rollbacks or different drivers atm, ...

eah2544 · Answer

I am experiencing a similar issue. I had to uninstall some windows update to get audio files to play again. I eventually clean installed windows and it was working better. However, it keeps auto installing software and now the problem is back.

JohnnyZ2 · Answer

I had the same issue as tmzl - 10-15 seconds delay when playing any sound on internal Realtek soundcard. All sounds played via HDMI were fine. I tried all possible Dell/Realtek sound drivers with zero success, but this resolved the problem completely:

https://neosmart.net/wiki/fix-realtek-audio-delay-lag/

It's a guide how to use the original default Microsoft sound drivers, which work just fine. I will log this issue anyway to Dell, because they have to fix this, it's a nightmare...

azdust · Answer

Unfortunately, the Microsoft drivers did not resolve the issue on my xps 17 9710 with Windows 11.

I rebuilt the system twice trying to eradicate all traces of Realtek. Windows 11 makes that nearly impossible.

mstremmelaar · Answer

I have the same problem, it started on Windows 11, when I tried it for a while via insiders program. At first it worked fine, after some updates the problem begun. Every application looks like it need some time before getting access to the soundcard/drivers. It's also visible if you start MaxxAudioPro app. It will hang for a while and after about 1 minute it will work. The same problem when I start a call in MS Teams, It will hang in the screen where you can join the meeting and after about 30-60 seconds teams will respond again. It was really annoying, so I did a reinstallation of Windows 10 and the problem was solved. But when I got further in time and some updates the problem returned, but now also on Windows 10. So I suspect that some of the not so good updates from Windows 11 also appeared on Windows 10 now and make the Realtek drivers not working properly.

tmzl · Answer

Sadly, this didn't resolve the issue.  The issue is still persisting, as mstremmelaar explained in detail, this is the exact issue.

dry_golfer · Answer

Same problem here (fairly new XPS 13 9310). Approx 20 second delay for system sounds, video playback (various software) and, perhaps most annoyingly, Teams, Zoom etc. to start up. Absolutely brutal bug that needs to be fixed ASAP - I don't buy a super expensive high spec-ed laptop for this. Started around the time that people seem to have begun to post about this - so I assume it's the same update that caused the problems. Very angry.

Robin D2 · Answer

Hi All

I identified the problem on my 2020 XPS9500 and how to resolve - I had my motherboard and speakers changed to no avail to ensure that it wasn't hardware related.

The issue is that in November (possibly earlier for some people) Dell released an update to the Realtek Audio drivers and these are posted on Windows Update so no matter what you do, the dodgy drivers are always re-installed.

To resolve the issue you go to your "support" page for your laptop on dell and download the January 2021 drivers. Then, before installing you need to run windows update to get all the latest updates and then pause windows updates for 7 days (you can do multiple pauses but I wouldn't recommend that as you may miss an important update). Now that you have paused the updates, you can now "downgrade" using the Jan 21 drivers which work perfectly. This will usually require 2 reboots and will advise you you are installing older drivers.

For those using external speakers /sound devices, I DJ from this laptop using an ASIO device and the driver latency from the Realtek Driver was even affecting that - this has resolved it (albeit I repeat it weekly)

Dell have still to fix this and cheekily advised me that I needed to spend £50 on their software support incident (I have 3 years basic on-site which doesn't cover this). I have advised them its a problem they have created and need to fix but the muppets on basic support don't seem to get this as it's outside of their scripts. Perhaps someone further up the food chain will read this and get it resolved !!!

Hope this helps others to resolve.

techiecoderdad · Answer

Robin D2's solution worked for me. I'll add the specifics for my system.

I was able to replicate this issue with Realtec drivers version 10.0.66.153 (A07, Oct 2021) and 10.0.66.148 (A06, Jun 2021). I could quickly test whether the problem existed by checking the responsiveness of the volume slider in the system tray. With those drivers, attempting to move the slider would freeze the slider control for 10-30 seconds, and the sound would not play until after that delay.

Installing Realtec driver version 10.0.66.134 (A05, Mar 2021) solved this issue for me and now my sound is working great again!

Thanks for the helpful suggestion!

shangl · Answer

Same issue here for 15 9500. Reinstall the latest audio driver won't help

mstremmelaar · Answer

I ended up reinstalling windows from the BIOS which I already did several times. But I can say thw sound issues in Windows 11 are now over and it did not occurred any longer. So for some reason it did reoccurring in the past after reinstallation. I guess there was something wrong in the first versions of windows 11 what permentally created an issue in windows 11 even when updating. It looks it is fixed now if you reinstall windows 11 completely from BIOS

XPS

XPS 15 9510: 30 second delay when starting audio on Audioengine A2+

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