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Last active March 12, 2024 13:31
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Realtek Gigabyte mainboard HD Audio driver (missing/unavailable Realtek HD Audio manager on Windows 10)
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instructions.md

Problem

The Realtek HD Audio manager isn't available on a recent (end 2020) Windows 10 system. The Realtek Audio chipset is on a Gigabyte mainboard.

Solution

  1. Install the Realtek HD Audio driver from Gigabyte, not from official Realtek site. Note: There is no universal Realtek driver (yet), there is an unofficial one on GitHub though, but its installation requires multiple steps, system files/settings modifications, etc. Installation may require one or two subsequent reboots, first the setup uninstalls the existing/old/incorrect Realtek Audrio drivers, then reboots and the setup automatically starts itself (be patient!) after rebooting and logging in to install the new driver.

  2. Now you would be already set, but there is a little issue: Although the Realtek Audio service is autostarted, the Realtek HD Audio manager is not available. This means that when you plugin in something, you can't define the input/output/device type (e.g. headphone or microphone), as it is possible with modern sound hardware architecture. The Realtek HD Audio manager executables are located under C:\Program Files\Realtek\Audio\HDA. Go to that directory (e.g. via Run... or Windows Explorer path bar) and then start the manager yourself. When starting the manager manually, a window should appear (hurra!), the manager will minimize into system tray and then run in the background, correctly handling audio jack plug-in events. To ensure the manager runs on startup, make it autostarted. There are several ways achieving this and all are quite simple, e.g. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/realtek-audio-manager-wont-start-minimized/4b9448f5-01cb-40cc-b4e6-3b0dcc658dae. Add the -s switch to make it start silently, without showing its GUI on startup. Open the Registry editor (⊞ Win + R; regedit; Enter), confirm UAC prompt, if necessary. Then go to Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run. Ensure a String registry key (REG_SZ) is present that contains a path to RtkNGUI64.exe. Key: Realtek HD Audio Manager Value: "C:\Program Files\Realtek\Audio\HDA\RtkNGUI64.exe" -s

@HugoP0
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HugoP0 commented Sep 7, 2021

It help me a lot, thank you !

@MaiderGoku
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does this work on windows 11?

@strarsis
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strarsis commented Mar 12, 2024 •
edited

@MaiderGoku: Had not tried this yet on Windows 11.
There are Realtek HD Audio drivers for Windows 11, albeit not from the Realtek manufacturer site, but rather OEMs (as from Intel or Dell),
would that work in your case? E.g. https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=j8k03&lwp=rt

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