Hi, it's me again! I'm quite happy with my new laptop (see this thread), but there is one big problem: the audio doesn't work properly. I've tried to troubleshoot and find out what's going on, and I will post what I think at he moment here. Usually when audio starts playing when it wasn't before, it starts a little later than it should, and the first bits of audio get mashed together into one very loud pop. When the audio is playing from the speakers, the sound is amplified, seemingly with a bass boost as well. With earbuds in, the sound is better, but it still doesn't seem quite right (compared to listening with the same earbuds on different devices). It's hard to tell, but it seems off, and seeing as there are two other issues it wouldn't be surprising if there is something wrong. Should I buy a new audio card? Is it even possible to install one in the Dell Latitude 5480? Are there other drivers I could try? (I already installed these multiple times) If you don't know about this problem yourself, do you maybe have a suggestion for another place to ask? Thanks! Audio is very important for me. Edit: Renamed from 'Audio issues' to 'Driver issues', as I later found out the graphics drivers are faulty too. I initially made another thread about that as I thought it might be Minecraft related, but it wasn't.
Have you tried a full reset/wipe? (I hope you would after buying a machine just for peace of mind against malware or a virus.) Before buying a new card try to prove whether the issue or hardware or software. Also to rule out other software drives could see if there is a safe mode boot option to minimize the number of running programs.
No, I haven't done a full reset, as the previous owner had done one. I know because when I booted it up for the first time, I got a lot of notifications. Where would I look for this safe mode boot option?
It tells you the driver for your audio was not initiated. The audio driver found in device manager very well could need to be updated, and could solve your problem. Since you are in safe mode it is not enabled hence the safe mode aspect. If a failing driver were crashing your system, this would allow you to log in around such a problem and fix it. In this case, it is simply reminding us that drivers are important.
But I have the latest driver. According to Windows, and my installation of Windows is up to date, and also according to the web, as I installed the latest driver from the web and it didn't change anything.
Hmmm if it's HP then adjust the audio settings because a new app has been relieced for Windows for HP audio
My coach reminded me that my laptop still has warranty, and as such, before trying to install a new audio card myself, I should try sending the place it was bought an e-mail. By the way, the audio does actually sound quite nice out of the laptop's speakers, so I hope that I could keep that maybe. But fidelity if of course way more important, and quality out of the headphone slot is much more important than quality out of the internal speakers.
If the speakers suck (like most laptop speakers do, not yours exclusively), or the 3.5mm headphone jack is broken, you could always get a USB to 3.5mm headphone and microphone adapter. I've listed one below that I bought for my friend on Amazon and he loves it. https://www.amazon.com/UGREEN-External-Headphone-Microphone-Desktops/dp/B01N905VOY/
The speakers seem good. But yeah, it is an option I could try. I could've given thefriedmans post more credit, but it seemed like he didn't want to put in the effort to read the OP or check things, which made me short in replying to him. This one's too expensive to just try, though. I should probably send an e-mail first at this point, I guess? Although honestly I would like to fix this myself, so I won't need to lose my laptop for a week or two. But maybe I shouldn't void the warranty.
I'm really not sure what you mean with "replacing the audio card". As far as I know, the audio part is usually built into the motherboard. Perhaps you could try booting to Linux (on a bootable Linux USB drive, google how to do this, it's quite easy), to see if the problems occur there too or not.
Can you take a picture of your laptop? Specifically on the side with where you are plugging in your speakers/headphones.
At the moment, any troubleshooting is simply based on assumptions from this little bit of info, so I'd take everything previously posted with a grain of salt. Before I'd make any suggestions, a few questions: When you say it "starts later than it should" do you mean there is a delay? Like if you play a YouTube video, does the audio not match up with the video at first? Does this "pop" resolve the issue and the audio delay is gone? Is this "pop" actually a loud popping noise or does it actually sound like all the previous audio is catching up all at once? There would be a very distinct sound difference between the two of these that could be important for troubleshooting. A pop would just be a sudden loud noise that sounds the same every time, whereas a mash would sound different each time and would be more normal sounding. Could you describe what "amplified" sounds like? What doesn't "seem quite right" about listening with earbuds? Do you have the same issue of the sounds seeming to be amplified, as you describe, and with a bass boost? You seem to be unsure about the quality of your speakers based on other replies, as well. A more detailed explanation of what the exact issue is could help a lot here as well I wouldn't jump the gun on doing any hardware replacements yet, especially if your laptop is under warranty. Although, this I'm not sure about since: This sounds like a pre-owned device, which typically don't come with warranties (though laws outside the US could be different). Again, going off limited details, but if your laptop is under any type of warranty or guarantee (which is possible, some places offer 30 to 90 day guarantees on pre-owned computers) you shouldn't be spending any money to repair it. Also, what do you mean by notifications? If the previous owner did a full reset, then the laptop would have booted up with basically nothing on it to notify you of, unless you meant the Windows setup prompts to setup the laptop. Lastly, for driver installs where are you getting the download? I see the link you shared is a Dell download link, but are you sure that's the correct and latest driver for your laptop? I've seen where these driver download websites have multiple options for drivers and you have to try and guess which one is the right one for your computer. Lots of questions, I know! I wanted to ask all of them in a single post that you could then easily respond to once with the info necessary to do some troubleshooting. I have some ideas about what the issues your having could be, but I'm keeping that to myself until I get more info to either confirm or deny my assumptions
Uh-oh. It's probably easier than it sounds, then. I will try that... maybe, some time. Thanks for the suggestion! Here's a picture I found. Editing into the quote, as otherwise it will be too much effort and too many quotes, or hard to follow: Thanks, JD! Now I should go downstairs, as my family is visiting for my birthday anniversary.
Happy birthday! It would perhaps be convenient if you could share the issues you're hearing, that might be able to help us. It's really not that difficult - I did it when I was like 11 and used it a couple of times on school computers (no clue why lol). Doing this helps narrow down the issue: if the problem persists on Linux, it "should" be either an actual hardware problem (unlikely, I'd say), or possibly a lack of an installed driver problem. I expect the problem not to persist on Linux, and there to be some software oddity causing this, probably related to the drivers, but I'm not sure.
