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Realtek HD Audio disappeared on two computers

N

Nerva72

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 18, 2016
Messages
66
So, I got a phone call from my parents asking me to come fix my mother's computer -- she had used it for years and suddenly out of the blue the speakers no longer worked. I go over there and spend some time figuring out what hardware the system has, and I see it has the usual Realtek motherboard audio with front headphone/microphone ports and surround ports in back, but it also has a Soundblaster X-Fi audio card that never had the plastic plugs removed from its ports. My parents had been using the front headphone port with a pair of cheapo desktop computer speakers -- I tried plugging them into every Realtek port but there was still no sound. Then I opened up Device Manager and noticed... the Realtek HD Audio simply wasn't there at all -- WTF? I reviewed the computer's specs and confirmed that indeed it does come with Realtek motherboard audio, so I downloaded the latest drivers and tried several time to install and uninstall them, but there was still no sign of the Realtek in Device Manager (or the Playback Devices list for that matter). Well, at the end of the day the only thing that really matters is getting the sound to work, so I pulled the plugs out of the X-Fi, installed the latest drivers, and there was sound coming from the speakers again -- mission accomplished, but the question remained unanswered as to what happened to the Realtek audio my mother had been using for years.

Fast forward a few weeks, and I'm using my own desktop, which has a Claro Halo XT PCI audio card hooked up to both a 5.1 speaker system and a pair of headphones plugged into the back of the card as well. But I just noticed that the Realtek motherboard audio has disappeared from this machine as well. I tried installing/uninstalling the latest drivers, "Scan for hardware changes" etc. but no luck.

I also have a HTPC with a Claro Halo XT PCI audio card -- I just checked, and its Realtek motherboard audio is still listed with the other audio devices.

The thing my parents' computer and my computer have in common but not with the HTPC is the former have a Nvidia graphics card while the latter has an AMD -- I am wondering if perhaps the Nvidia HD audio is somehow interfering with the Realtek? I've tried both disabling and uninstalling the Nvidia audio, but there's still no trace of the Realtek.
 
Is the OS Windows 10 perhaps? My sons audio settings get reset almost every time WIn10 updates. Among other things it disables the microphone input in the SoundBlaster settings. It's annoying but can be worked around, he now knows which setting to change when it happens again.
 
Sorry, I should have covered that -- both computers are running Windows 7 x64.
 
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