Dual audio drivers?

I've found that I bit off more than I could chew and overestimated my 'tech savvy-ness' when I bought an HP laptop and did a clean install of windows 7 to get rid of all the bloatware.

I'm having sound issues and I think it may be driver related. Have this HP dv6-3210us

I've gone to the support section of the website and downloaded the audio driver they have listed for my model. When I looked up my devices and drivers, I found that I had two drivers both labeled "High Definition Audio Device" by Microsoft. I ran the setup file that I downloaded from HP support which changed one of the drivers to IDT High Definition Audio Codec, but left the other driver as it was (High Definition Audio Device).

I've noticed that my volume has greatly increased and the sound quality is better, but I'm having some issues with popping and crackling.

First of all, I'm wondering why I have two audio drivers in the first place? And secondly, should they be different drivers or should they be identical?

You remember to install the video driver?

AMD High-Definition Graphics Driver HP Pavilion dv6-3210us Entertainment Notebook PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English)

probably find the second one is for the HDMI audio built into the HD 4250 graphics.

I checked the driver and it matched what HP had listed on their support site, so I didn't bother, until now. I just ran the setup and it actually installed a bunch stuff like controllers and another sound driver, so I think that was it. Thanks for the tip

Forerunner:

Your problem with the crackling and popping sounds a LOT like this thread link to this thread here: Realtek, Windows 7 64RTM Crackle/static/popping

When you listen to the speakers without any source playing can you better describe the noises coming from the speakers. Do you hear any soft low volume beeps and squeals as well, like perhaps the working of the cpu?