Troubleshooting Realtek HD Audio Driver Issues
Realtek is the manufacturer of what is one of the most commonly used integrated sound chips in modern PC motherboards. No matter if you bought your computer in 2021 or in 2020, chances are your motherboard has a Realtek HD audio chip on it.
With Realtek integrated sound hardware being that common, it's natural that issues related to setting up drivers and getting it to work as intended are also common, due to the large number of people running Realtek sound chips.
This article will offer you a few ideas you can attempt if you are having issues with your Realtek HD audio driver.
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Reinstall the Realtek audio driver using Windows automatic detection
The majority of Realtek HD audio driver issues you can run into will be fixed simply by uninstalling the current driver and letting Windows reinstall a fresh one. Window 10 has made tremendous steps towards automating the process of driver installation for generic, common hardware and Realtek HD audio chips are no exception.
To first uninstall your driver, right click your start menu and select Device Manager. In the device manager window, expand the category named "Sound, Video and Game Controllers". Chances are, you will only have a single item inside that category and that would be your Realtek HD audio device. It may also show up simply as "High definition audio device" under certain circumstances.
Right click on the device and choose "Uninstall device". This will force Windows to completely uninstall the existing driver. Once the driver has been uninstalled, reboot your PC.
Windows will pick up the existing Realtek hardware as a new device without a driver and should install a fresh driver automatically. This will be enough to solve most issues.
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Download and install a driver package from Realtek's website
If the previous suggestion does not solve your Realtek HD audio driver issues, your next best bet is to download the official driver package from Realtek's website.
The company provides all-in-one bundles of both 32 and 64-bit drivers that include Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 versions of the audio driver.
You will need to enter an email address and agree to the company's short disclaimer, then you can download your driver package for your OS.
The driver package comes in the form of an executable installer. Before you run that, make sure you first uninstall your current audio driver, using the steps above. Next, run the installer and follow the onscreen prompts to complete the Realtek HD audio driver installation.
