Audio volume very low after installing Realtek driver  

cwaters said:

I wonder why the 11/2010 rollback version (6.1.7601...) has a higher number than the 12/2014 version (6.0.1...)? Also, why did the 12/2014 version appear only now--nearly four months after it's release?

I see the R2.75 driver (from 5/2014) fireberd referred to on Realtek's site. The disclaimer on the site states: "Audio drivers available for download from the Realtek website are general drivers for our audio ICs, and may not offer the customizations made by your system/motherboard manufacturer. To be sure you obtain the full features/customizations provided in your original audio product, please download the latest drivers from your system/motherboard manufacturer's website." My PC is a Dell Studio XPS 435 MT. Since Dell's drivers page for this model doesn't mention any Realtek updates, I suppose R2.75 is worth trying. If it doesn't work, I can always rollback again to 6.1.7601.17514 (11/19/2010).

It's a Windows driver, not a manufacturer driver. The 7601 indicates that it's Windows 7 SP1, if it were just Windows 7, it'd be 7600.

Ironically, I think the drivers offered by my motherboard manufacturer and Realtek are older than the ones offered by Windows update...

When I pull up the product page, I get this:

Intel® 7.1 channel High Definition Audio

Optional Creative PCI Express Sound Blaster® X-Fi ™ Xtreme Audio (D)† or Creative PCI Express Sound Blaster® X-Fi ™ Titanium (D)†

† Certain components may differ from the retail version.

Dell Studio XPS 435 Desktop Details | Dell

The Studio XPS435 is a relatively old PC. I wouldn't use the Realtek drivers as they may not be compatible. I would only use the Dell supplied drivers.

I used to do a lot of support on the Dell forums and systems in that era (2008/9) were still using a lot of Dell proprietary hardware. It was iffy using non-Dell supplied drivers.

Windows (in all cases I've seen) does not install a manufacturers driver. If the sound chip is compatible it will only install the generic, basic function, High Definition Audio Driver (Codec). If Windows installed a Realtek driver it was through an update, not the basic Window 7 install.

The drivers offered by Windows are ones that have went through the Microsoft validation process. It does not mean that other drivers are not compatible or applicable, just that the ones offered by Windows update are ones that have passed the validation process. One drawback with those is that many times they are older versions than what is offered by the PC Vendor or hardware vendor.

Not every non-Dell driver is bad, just that we saw a lot of them that were.