Realtek HD Audio suddenly went missing

nekr0s

Distinguished
Sep 23, 2013
20
0
18,510
Ive been dealing with this issue for about 7 hours now, first off, I restarted my pc earlier today and when it booted back up the audio icon in the tray looked like this
4vUkqQ1.png

When clicking it runs a troubleshooter which doesnt fix anything. Looking at my sound devices, only these are showing, the HD audio from my graphics card, which i'm not using as my monitor has no HDMI port (i'm using DVI from my graphics card as display)
rsFeNwM.png

Theres a 6th one which is the same as the rest.

The realtek HD audio manager icon has disappeared from the tray, and reinstalling every realtek driver from every source imaginable, my motherboards download page, realtek itself, even system restore to a point that it was working. All didnt work. I ran through everything including reinstalling all my graphics drivers, reseating the card, getting into BIOS and making sure integrated audio was enabled.
Finally, after 6 hours and being almost reduced to tears from frustration, it was all working.
..Only to crap out again within 15 minutes.
I managed to fix it again shortly afterwards, at the cost of my graphics card driver somehow crapping out and having to use onboard graphics, The AMD radeon settings wasnt picking up that it was installed. Managed to fix that and my sound was working fine - until it messed up AGAIN. So i'm pretty much back at the start now.

This has only started happening today, there were no updates that caused it, it was just randomly while playing a game. I've made sure Windows Audio, Audio Endpoint Builder, and all dependant services are running. Ive been to the registry and deleted LowerFilter (there was no Upper) as what I think the Realtek used to be in device manager now shows up with the yellow ! and displays code 10.
I've scoured the internet all night trying everything to just run around in circles.
This is my device manager right now

Hkdy5gu.png

I Have ASRock z170m itx/ac mobo
hd radeon 7750 gpu
and some kind of logitech speakers that I know definitely work
 

nekr0s

Distinguished
Sep 23, 2013
20
0
18,510


nope, the troubleshooter says it cant identify the problem. and I have tried to let it give me some generic drivers that way, that doesn't work either. even uninstalling the AMD HD audio device, I'm just left with absolutely no sound drivers

 

nekr0s

Distinguished
Sep 23, 2013
20
0
18,510


I've just done that using DDU and reinstalled both AMD drivers and Realtek.
this time, Realtek does not even show up in the device manager. only the AMD HD Audio is there.
 

nekr0s

Distinguished
Sep 23, 2013
20
0
18,510
I ran a DXDIAG, it reports there is no sound card found.
In the BIOS, I tried disabling onboard audio, then reenabling it on next boot. not working
i tried reinstalling the chipset drivers that came with the motherboard CD, then reinstalling realtek driver. not working
 

nekr0s

Distinguished
Sep 23, 2013
20
0
18,510
Nov 12, 2018
1
0
10
Someone else posted this in another post with the same question.
I spent so much of my life trying to find the solution so thanks to him (I don't have the link to original answer).

f**k windows and his "solutions".

Go to bios and find "Audio DSP" or whatever its named in your card. mine is a gigabyte.
Disable it.
Restart and you will see Realtek audio there.

Who ever is responsible with this bug, ill find you and ill vengeance my lost hours.
 
May 1, 2019
1
0
10
Someone else posted this in another post with the same question.
I spent so much of my life trying to find the solution so thanks to him (I don't have the link to original answer).

f**k windows and his "solutions".

Go to bios and find "Audio DSP" or whatever its named in your card. mine is a gigabyte.
Disable it.
Restart and you will see Realtek audio there.

Who ever is responsible with this bug, ill find you and ill vengeance my lost hours.
I know it's annoying bumping an old thread but thank you. Thank you so much. I've been dealing with this issue for MONTHS and you just solved it effortlessly for me.