Audio setup on computers and laptops is delicate in general, becomes all the more so when using a dock.
After you have installed OS on your computer, or at any other time, if you are facing difficulties in setting up audio devices, the following may help.
Let's see what we can do to setup up audio devices, especially with an external dock.
- Disable and stop bloatware/trialware (like Waves Audio that comes on Dell laptops).
These may be useful at times, e.g. in improving the sound quality, or by providing a UI for configuring options like equalizer.
But if you are struggling with basic audio setup, it's a good idea to start with these disabled and stopped.
Check startup (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) and startup and/or services (services.msc in Run), and stop/disable these programs and services.
Note: After disabling, e.g. Waves Audio, automatic detection of a newly-plugged-in audio device may not work. Use the steps given in point number 3. below to make that work.
- If you are using an external dock, confirm the type of audio ports and jacks, and do not assume. There may be, and generally are more than one audio ports.
If there is no symbol next to the port, assume to be line-out.
If there is a headphone symbol, it can be either a headphone (sort of line-out) or a combined headphone/microphone port. Checking the dock manual would be the best thing.
- One major issue I've frequently encountered is that Windows does not detect the plugging in event, and hence the device that was connected.
But the good news is that device detection can be forced by using the steps given below.
Assuming you inserted an audio pin into the dock (which is connected via USB to the computer), do as below:- Device manager --> Sound, video and game controllers --> Realtek USB Audio --> Right click --> Update driver --> Browse my computer for drivers --> Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer --> Select the one that seems to be already installed.
The above reinstalls the driver even if it is the same which was already there.
And, right after that the new device should be visible in Sounds --> Playback or Recording panel.
- Same is true if you inserted a pin into the direct audio port (i.e. the one that is on the laptop or computer itself). In this case, right click on Realtek(R) Audio and update driver as explained above.
- Even the above may not help sometimes and you may not see the devices as you expected. E.g. going as per 3.1 above I selected Realtek USB Audio Version 6.3.9600.2277 [06-Jan2021] a few times but I was not able to have my mic detected through the USB headphone port.
- If this happens, changing the drivers can help. That is, do not select the driver that seem to be already being used for the device in question.
So, go to the list of drivers by right clicking on Realtek USB Audio or Realtek(R) Audio as explained in 3.1 above, and then select a different driver this time. I selected USB Audio Device.
And voila! Right after that the entries given in 6, 7 and 8 below appeared in my Sound --> Playback and Sound --> Recording panels.
- After this, the audio playback device I inserted started showing (as it should) as Line device in Sounds --> Playback (which I chose to be the default device).
- There was also this entry in Sounds --> Playback (which can be used if needed). This was there in my case because the pin I had inserted into headphone port had both speaker and mic rings. Depending upon your pin, this may or may not show up.
- And, in Sounds --> Recording, finally this showed up.
Thus, by following the steps above, we should be able to both have Windows detect our newly plugged in device, and have it properly shown in Sounds as well.
