Realtek Audio Issues - How to Fix the Most Common Ones

Realtek is a Taiwanese manufacturer of semiconductors and related products. The most likely way you have come across their name is when looking at drivers for your computer. Realtek manufacturers the chips used in a significant part of onboard sound boards - the most common kind you will encounter in a home or office PC.

If for some reason you are having issues with your Realtek audio board, this article will provide a few quick ideas on how to deal with them.

First things first, if you are running a Windows 10 install on your system, the chances of ever running into issues with your Realtek hardware and sound board are very slim. Windows 10 has greatly improved driver support for generic hardware and you will no longer need to manually download and install drivers for 99 percent of common hardware components, including sound cards, mice and ethernet adapters.

However, if you are having trouble with your Realtek audio card, the first thing you should do, regardless of which OS you use, is reinstall the drivers.

Open Realtek's website in your favorite browser or do a quick Google search for "Realtek audio drivers". This will quickly help you find the company's extensive list of drivers. Realtek provides drivers for legacy operating systems stretching back to Windows 2000.

Download and run the driver package that corresponds to your OS. The product you are looking for should be called "High Definition Audio Codecs Software".

In the majority of cases, a simple driver reinstall will fix any issues you have with your Realtek audio card.

If the problem persists, you can check the settings used in the Realtek manager window on Windows 7 or use the Windows 10 audio troubleshooter.

If you suspect there might be an issue with the hardware itself, as always, take your PC to a qualified technician for repairs.