Windows 7 Audio Automatically Disabling After A Few Minutes of Idling?

Jarek319

Honorable Member
I have an HP Compaq 8510w laptop, and a Realtek HD Audio soundcard, using Windows 7 RC1, with all Windows Updates coming in as they're released. Whenever I'm listening to music and movies, the audio works fine, never a complaint.

Whenever I leave my computer alone for a few minutes, I see the mute button on my laptop light up. When I try to play a song or watch a movie at that point, it takes about 5-8 seconds for the audio to start playing, and then I usually have to restart the song or video because the sync is off by then. Reading some posts, I think it's a power management issue, a feature where Windows sends the sound card driver into D3Cold status. I can't find where to turn this off, however. I set all my power management options to "always on, full power, no selective suspend' etc etc.

Does anyone know how to stop this from happening?

On another, less important note. I cannot get sound from my HDMI port. I tried installing many different drivers (uninstalling the previous ones first, of course), including the Realtek HD Audio drivers, but to no avail.

I'm posting this thread in both Hardware and Support. Hope that's ok.
 
Last edited:
hey jarek139

i have your exact same model and am having the exact same issue. i have been looking across the internet for a while and have not found a solution until tonight. the forum i found that listed the solution is here:

Windows 7 Mute problems

in that forum the person solved the issue by using a driver updater to completely uninstall the driver, and then restarting the unit before the new driver installed. after the restart, he hid the update for the driver in windows update and it has been working ever since.

i switched up his method a bit by uninstalling the audio drive through device manager, making sure to check the box below it that mentions completely uninstalling the software, and then restarting. after preventing windows from updating the driver, i have had no issues with my unit muting while idleing.

the only difference is that my unit has a soundMAX card, where it looks like yours has a realtek. however, because we both have the same models, i do not think it is entirely the sound card's fault. therefore i hope the solution can work for you as well.

let me know how it goes!
 
oh thank god, finally. thanks for helping me solve it. i used the program to uninstall the drivers, then prevented windows update from installing. dam it windows!
 
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