There are many components to a personal computer. These all operate together to create a convenient working device that helps us from the simple task of checking out an email to more complex problems like writing code. There is one thing that with some computer users that is overlooked and that is where does all of the sound come from? What is behind every ding, zap, and audio file that you hear?

The answer is simple you have a sound card, which in turn needs a driver to make it operate efficiently and be able to communicate with other parts of your software systems. The most common that come with your personal computer is the Realtek HD Audio Drivers. We may not always see that the realtek audio is running because it does run in the background as a background process. It does, however, deliver Dolby sound and surround sound also you can tweak this to your personal preference depending on what speaker system you may have set up.

The realtek audio driver may need to be updated, uninstalled, and reinstalled if error occur and this is a common type problem that happens over time and usage of the computer. There are pretty simple steps to complete to get a fix for this issue. The most recommend is to use DriverSupport. This is an automated way of fixing the issue, you will need to download DriverSupport and if you get the Premium then it will automatically update the driver for you and look for any other optimizations it can perform for you.

The other steps are if you are a bit more advanced and feel comfortable doing a fix yourself. The first area you need to navigate is to go to your Device Manager, you can either search for this using your Windows search bar or you can open the “Run” box by holding down the Windows key and hitting the R on your keyboard. Once this is done type into the box “devmgmt.msc” once this runs it will show you a listing of all the components, adapters, and other parts of your computer.

What we are looking for is sound, video, and game controllers. Once you have located this you will click the arrow to expand the drop-down menu and select the Realtex Audio. Once you have clicked on this you can choose to update the driver, however, if the driver is up to date it will show you this, if this is not the case then go ahead a do “search automatically” the driver will be downloaded and you will need to restart your computer.

The next step is to uninstall the device all together if the Realtek Audio Manager has become corrupted, as a general rule this is installed along with the new driver but sometimes a manual reinstall is required. Once you have opened up the device manager, expanded your sound, video, and game controllers select Realtek HD Audio and click remove the device. Then you will need to restart your computer for the complete uninstall to register in the system. Once the computer reboots go back to Device Manager and this time click the Action button at the top and select Scan For Hardware Changes, the system will detect the missing Realtex Audio and will let you know to reinstall it, just follow the prompts for installing. Once completed just restart your computer to make sure the errors have gone away.

The last two items to try if this does not correct the errors is to check to see if you have a conflict with Microsoft’s UAA Bus Driver you will need to go under devices and disabled it. Then you will need to go to programs and features also known as Apps and Features using Windows 10 find the Realtek driver and uninstall it, then go back into your Device Manager and find your Microsoft UAA Bus Driver right click and choose uninstall. Do not restart your computer at this time. Now follow the steps to reinstall your Realtek driver then restart your computer. If these steps do not correct the problem the worst-case scenario would be to replace your sound card inside the computer.

Hemant Kumar