MSI GS40 Windows 10 Realtek Headphone Jack issue not recognized SOLVED

[wbrown@sc.rr.com]

Forgive me if this has been posted before, but after fruitless searches, I had almost given up on being able to use headphones with the Realtek drivers for my MSI GS40 6QE and am excited to have found the simple solution for me.  Hopefully it will help someone else.  

First, a little background:
Up until now, the only way that the headphone jack on my GS40 would work was if I used the base Windows HD audio drivers.  Using the Realtek drivers, the headphones would not be recognized.  I knew that the jack itself was OK because it would work with the standard windows driver, but I could not figure out what was keeping the jack from being recognized with the Realtek driver.  The headphone jack did not even display as a playback device (I did finally figure out how to make it show there as a device, but it showed not plugged in even with the headphone plugged in).  This problem persisted through multiple updates of the drivers and Nahimic. 

My solution:
Well, tonight I figured out by looking at the executable files in the Realtek install directory (and trying all of them), that the key was making sure that the Realtek HD Audio Manager was running.  I'm sure it's a service that is started when the manager is executed, but for me, the fact that this works is all that's important.  The executable file for the HD sound manager is RtkNGUI64.exe and can be found in the Win64 subdirectory in the Realtek install directory (i.e. when you download and unzip the driver file from MSI, it will be in the Win64 subdirectory).  I have copied a shortcut to my startup directory so that the Realtek manager runs now automatically.

I suspect that there is something in the customization MSI has done in releasing the Realtek drivers and Nahimic that is turning off the startup execution of the Realtek HD sound manager.  There may be other implications in starting the manager, but so far it works flawlessly.

This has solved my single biggest aggravation with this notebook and I hope that this might help someone else who has struggled with this issue.

 

[lin.yu0945]

Thanks for sharing.


Just curious. Did you ever try with new audio driver and Nahimic from MSI?

 

[wbrown@sc.rr.com]

Yes, I did try updated drivers every time they were released on the MSI support site and I installed Nahimic as well each time.  (And, yes I did follow the process of uninstalling Nahimic before installing the new Realtek drivers.)   

One other positive thing to note is that because I could never get the Realtek drivers to work, I never got to use Nahimic with my headphones.  Now that it's all working, I am impressed with the difference Reatek drivers/Nahimic make in the in game sound.  Not only am I happy that the headphone jack works as it should, but I'm happy with Nahimic, too!

As I mentioned in my first post, I am assuming that a Service is being started when I run the Realtek HD Sound Manager.  If I knew what service it was, I would look to start that alone instead of running the Realtek executable.  Anyone have any ideas?

 

[whitakersm84]

It should autoload with Windows once the driver is installed. The file is located at: 

C:\Program Files\Realtek\Audio\HDA\RtkNGUI64.exe

The installer should create a startup entry: "C:\Program Files\Realtek\Audio\HDA\RtkNGUI64.exe" -s
[attachthumb=1]

 

[wbrown@sc.rr.com]

Thanks for the reply.  

I think you've hit on the problem with my notebook.  For whatever reason, that start command was not added with the MSI provided Realtek driver installs I've done (several of them) over the time I've had this computer.  I have added that command manually to my startup (without the "-s") after finding the Realtek executable you noted.  

Your reply tells me that what I've manually done in adding that startup command is essentially what should have happened automatically when installing the drivers.  So, I have not added any extra system burden by my click and hope attempt and the service that was needed is being added by that file being run.

Cheers!

 

[fatpasta]

Thank you. I have a new Stealth that tech support gave me an RMA to return because of the issue that this corrects.