Windows 10 Audio Delay. Realtek HD Audio Driver

[Blind X]

So, this has annoyed me for almost a week now. I have tried everything on every YouTube video and all sorts of forums regarding this topic from recent to several years ago. I have checked settings in my control panel, edited Windows registry, and have even done several driver reinstalls and rollbacks, but the issue still persists.

I am currently on a Dell Inspiron 16 5625 with a Ryzen 5 5625u and the issue started from the very first day I purchased this laptop and did a fresh windows install and updated everything upto date.

I finally decided to make a post about this as I can't find the solution to my problem anywhere now after wasting hours, days, and now almost a week on this.

Here is the list of problems I am facing. These could be in combination depending on what setting I am currently on.

1. 2-3 second audio delay. When clicking on the sound bar in the bottom right, opening a program as an admin, playing a video, watching YouTube, and basically anything that requires sound. It makes Windows freeze for a duration, and sometimes the video comes before the audio or vice versa.

2. Inferior Audio Quality. Flat Speakers. No Bass. Less Loud.

3. Microphone has static and catches all the background noise.

4. Inserting a 3.5mm Headphone Jack is completely undetected unless the system is booted with the headphones initially plugged in.

Now it is to be noted that none of these problems are present together at once. But It is a combination of mostly 2 problems depending on what drivers I have currently installed.

When I install the Microsoft Windows HD Audio Driver (replace the Realtek HD audio) to fix the 2-3 second audio delay as stated in a solution in the link below;

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/xps/xps-13-9310-audio-delay/647f99fcf4ccf8a8ded82346

Even though it does actually solve the initial problem for me i.e., the 2-3 second audio lag, the sound quality becomes significantly inferior, and the speakers sound flat like they have no bass, and the loudness is also compromised. Enhancements don't help. Apart from that, when using my Voice recorder in Windows 10, it has now a buzzing static background noise that is constantly present throughout the recording and captures every possible noise in the background. But the headphone detection is now smooth and instant.

I have also tried to keep the Realtek audio driver for superior audio quality and recording capabilities and tried to fix the lag with it while keeping it installed and trying this registry hack;

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Audio/3-seconds-delay-to-play-sounds-through-headphone/td-p/6631359/page/2

But I didn't notice any difference even though when I tried this for all audio driver's power settings, which include the Realtek audio driver and the AMD audio drivers.

I also tried setting my power plan to high performance (maximum performance) so that the driver doesn't go idle or something, but the delay is still there.

It is to be noted that the headphone detection issue was almost always present when I am on the Realtek audio driver, but I was able to fix it by enabling the Waves MaxxAudio Pro for Dell Service, which now is able to detect my headphones when plugged in. I disabled the service previously, not knowing that I won't be able to use my headphones without it.

But the delay is so significant with the Realtek and Waves MaxxAudio Pro that even opening an MP4 file freezes the movie app for 5+ seconds till it actually starts responding and playing normally.

I am literally down for any of the possible fixes.

1. Using the Microsoft HD Audio Driver with superior sound quality and no static in microphone recording.

2. Fixing the audio delay while still keeping Realtek HD Audio and being able to detect my headphones with or without Waves MaxxAudio (which I find extremely difficult to get rid of).

[rippy4500]

It's actually better to turn off enhancements. With audio, less processing = better so you retain the original data as well as possible. don't use that maxxaudio stuff or other processing things, disable all of it as it'll make things worse. Turn off all audio devices except the ones in use cause sometimes there is multiple that aren't really use, also set sample rate to 48KHz and the highest bit depth possible.

If you install the realtek driver, you can try using it by itself without the audio control panel. Disabling it fully actually improved sound quality IIRC when I used to use onboard sound, make sure it's off in startup(task manager) and also services or wherever it is so only the driver itself loads.Also disable anything dell related, it's all bloat.

Also try enabling message signaled interrupts for the audio nic, sometimes its off by default and causes various issues.

Or you can just buy an external dac/amp and it'll sound much better anyways, it's always my first recommendation for anyone who wants better sound or is having problems with onboard. As for recommendations id say get a FiiO KA13 cause it's cheap and small, it will work better than any onboard audio.

[BlackDragon1971]

Get rid of the Dell. Get a custom built desktop, not a prebuilt.

[rippy4500]

3 minutes ago, BlackDragon1971 said:

Get rid of the Dell. Get a custom built desktop, not a prebuilt.

Not everyone can just buy a new computer like that, and also this is a laptop so it's different.
Most issues are fixed by a clean windows install which OP already did.