Windows 7: Latest Realtek HD Audio Driver Version

You can if you want updated driver.

If you're running Windows 7 and you have a very early version of the Realtek-provided drivers for your onboard Realtek HD Audio chip, or more likely a Microsoft-provided "original version with Windows 7" of "generic" drivers to provide sound from this hardware, you really should update to the real Realtek-provided drivers.

Early on in the driver sequence for Windows 7, Realtek failed to provide the "10-band user-customizable EQ" which had been available with previous OS environments (e.g. in WinXP).

This was eventually made available again in the Windows 7 driver at about the 2.52 version as I recall, some time back. For me this was reason enough to make that transition, as for me the availability of the 10-band EQ provides greatly improved sound quality for my relatively simple sound setup which actually have very good speakers.

For this reason alone, I would recommend strongly that you update your system to the latest Realtek HD Audio Codec drivers... from Realtek.

I just did the update. I have never done this as my motherboard never say anything about it. I think its up to Windows to install it and it is the generic.

Is there any difference in the audio after doing this?

Well, for one, if you did the upgrade successfully (and re-booted as requested) you should now see an orange speaker icon in the System Tray, in addition to the standard white Windows speaker icon. This is the Realtek HD Audio Manager. You can open it up and configure your speakers to whatever they should be (surround sound, quadraphonic, stereo, etc.).

You can also go into the Effects tab and play with the 10-band EQ (i.e. 10 frequency bands of bass and treble tone control, instead of just bass and treble). This has to produce improved sound, I would say... assuming you have decent speakers connected to your computer.

Yah, I see all that for the first time. It ask for the reboot.

I am in the Effects tab. I can see only one place to play the sound and thats at the Speaker Configuration tab. How do I play sound at the SOund Effects tab?

You don't "play" sound in the Sound Effects tab. You only set your EQ sliders in the Sound Effects tab.

Presumably you have a second window open simultaneously, say with Winamp or Windows Media Player or some music/video player program that produces sound.

And as you adjust the sliders in the EQ of the Realtek HD Audio Manager, you can hear the difference occurring from whatever sound is being produced from your second video/music player window.

The idea is that you adjust the EQ sliders to produce the quality of sound you want, and then you SAVE that EQ with some custom name of your own choosing. That saved EQ can then be selected by its name, from the dropdown list of Equalizer setting... along with the pre-built special effect EQ names provided by Realtek.

Once you select an EQ, it's now in effect until you change to another EQ. So once you select an EQ (or, you can even just move the sliders from wherever they currently are to make a "temporary modification", and you don't even really need to save that modified EQ configuration as a name unless you really want to save it) you can close the whole Realtek HD Audio Manager window. The last selected/modified EQ slider settings will remain in effect.

You can have as many custom EQ's saved as you care to create. But you have to select them using this Sound Effects tab if you want to change the one currently in effect.


(1) So... you get started by opening Realtek HD Audio Manager by right-clicking on the orange speaker icon in the System Tray. Then you select the Sound Manager item at the top of the popup menu to open the main window.



(2) Next, on the main window of HD Audio Manager you select the Sound Effects tab and you push the "equalizer" button.


(3) You now have the 10-band EQ presentation, instead of the original initial default "Realtek-provided pre-built EQ presets" presentation. On this 10-band EQ slider presentation you can then customize as you want.


After you adjust the sliders to your liking, push the SAVE button and choose a name to save that EQ under (or, choose an existing name if you want to replace a previously saved setting with the newly modified version).


NOTE: you should take a screenshot of each of your custom EQ's slider settings, and save that JPG somewhere for future reference. Unfortunately there are no numerical flyout-Help values if you hover the mouse over a slider, so there's no way to precisely digitally duplicate this EQ again if you had to start over. Only your screenshot will give you an image for you to approximate a newly built EQ from the screenshot, if you have to rebuild.

And... you WILL have to rebuild your custom EQ's when you upgrade to a new version of the Realtek HD Audio Codec driver, if you do decide to upgrade again. Unfortunately, because the "upgrade" to a new Realtek driver is actually a 2-step process that (a) uninstalls the old driver, and then (b) installs the new driver, in that process all of your custom EQ's are LOST!!! Don't complain to me about that (I'm as angry as you are), complain to Realtek! That's just how they did it.

And, there is no way to actually save or preserve those custom EQ definitions, as the folder in which they reside is newly created with a new name each time the driver upgrade process occurs, and there's no way to copy an old EQ definition into the new folder. Again, Realtek is at fault here... but there doesn't seem to be a workaround, although many of us have tried.

Hence my own "solution", which is simply to take a JPG screenshot of each of my custom EQ's and just re-build them all over again (approximately, obviously) if I do upgrade to a new driver version.

I see it now. I did the cave and hanger thing and I hear echo in the sound effects.

I have a Klipsch 2.1 speaker with big subwoofer. I think its just an above average speaker.

What Environment and Equlizer setting would I set it to for playing movies. It has been NONE on both.

Thanks for your help.

That is a matter of personal preference. All I can suggest is that you try various different configuration settings and see which sounds better to you.

thanks for the updates!

just a question though, my previous audio driver (i think it was 6.0.1.5548) were the default Realtek HD drivers that came with this laptop. Recently, I found my video players (MPC, KMPlayer, WMP, etc) began freezing on load up of a video randomly (only froze on load up -- if the player loaded the video and started playing, it worked fine). At first, I thought it was a video driver issue but then further testing revealed that my music player (winamp) was also mashed and could not play sound. Restarting fixed all of these issues temporarily but they would appear again sooner or later (sometimes it took a few weeks, sometimes it would happen in a day). However, today I found that disabling my sound driver fixed the video players -- they would no longer hang on start up and video would start playing and I could skip around, play with options, etc (obviously, I had no sound).

what would the cause of this problem be and would this update fix it?

hey bro can u tell me wta is ur sound version of realtek ALC883 mine is 6.0.1.5904 but 10band EQ is not available here