Strange audio problem with an equally strange solution

I was happily using my NP9772 today, then needed to step away for a bit. Instead of shutting down as I usually do, I put the system to sleep. So far, so innocuous. After getting back to what I was doing, I put my headphones only to discover that there was no sound coming from them. The microphone input worked fine, as did the rear output jack and internal speakers. The headphones were also OK when plugged into a USB adapter, but nothing I plugged into the primary headphone port would produce sound. Even more strangely, this dead audio condition would remain through a reboot, but a cold start would restore everything to proper working order until the system was put back to sleep.

As such, these symptoms would indicate some kind of software problem. I tried several different Realtek software packages, and even the built-in Microsoft drivers with no luck. I then reverted my video drivers to see if this was possibly an NVIDIA-related issue because with their recent track record, I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised if it were. No joy.

As I approached my wit's end, I elected to throw one last Hail Mary. My current Windows config did not have the Clevo Hotkey software installed because I never really used it and didn't want it taking up space on my SSD and in my system tray. I bit the bullet, installed the driver, rebooted, put the system to sleep, and woke it up.

Result. Audio is playing perfectly through my headphones even after several more sleep/wake cycles. I have absolutely no clue as to why this worked, nor what it is about not having the Hotkey software installed that causes the problem. It's stuff like this that really makes me miss my MacBook Pro, at least until the next time I fire up a game.

Consider this thread a public service for anyone on the Internet who might have an issue similar to this in the future.

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

Thanks for sharing, I never skip such components such as the Control Center or the Alienware Control Center in my previous Alienware as they contain important drivers such as the keyboard drivers, hotkeys, and a lot of system functionality like the one you mentioned.

 

It makes no sense to me how not having a (largely superfluous, IMO) piece of software installed would cause an issue with an unrelated piece of hardware, and even then only a single component of said hardware is affected.

It's not so much the fact that installing the Hotkey software fixes the problem, but why it does that has me baffled.

 

True, it makes no sense to me either. I thought the only thing that controls Audio is the Realtek Driver and Sound Blaster app

 

Sounds to me like a bug in the Realtek backend which is being worked around by the Clevo CC. The RT driver probably isn't polling the jack sensing after sleep/wake.

 

While this explanation makes sense, there's one problem with it: The issue was still present when using the generic Microsoft audio driver and no Realtek software installed. This leads me to believe it's more an underlying problem with Windows 10. I'd love to test this with Windows 8.1 or 7, and while I have a copy of the former available, I'm not in the mood of doing a reformat to find out.

 

This is a known (and admittedly annoying) issue with many clevos.
my w230sd does the same thing.

 

Not sure, maybe it is related to the function keys controlling the system? I just think of how MSI models you need the SCM installed to control Fn F6 to turn the web cam on and off, so the keyboard program is needed for the webcam.

 

It has been something of an elusive idiosyncrasy for awhile. Thanks for bringing it up, though; anyone else has this for reference. Hopefully a fix will come around soon (this is more of a workaround, especially for those not interested in the hotkey app).

 

Yeah, though i never sleep my system, i hate the CC/Hotkey app, after installing either of these apps some of my software license services. Im not able to make any changes or restart the license servers even if i kill their services and/or active processes.
Im not sure what CCC, has anything to do with completely unrelated packages.

 

Well, the NP9772 has been out for some time, so I doubt anything will be coming down the pipeline soon, if ever. I have a feeling it will be one of those eternal mysteries, unless by some miracle Clevo pulls through with a permanent solution. The current workaround is something I personally can live with, but it looks like having the software installed is causing issues for others.

 

I'm going to submit this to R & D. Perhaps they can escalate it up the chain to Clevo R & D. I'd hate to think the issue is dead in the water when it's so prevalent.

 

Much obliged. I'd be very curious to see what they come back with. Hopefully this is something that can be fixed.

 

I think I have found a workaround to the issue for those that want the headphone jack but don't want to have Hotkey installed. Digging around inside the Hotkey folder I found that the exe responsible for the headphone recovery after sleep/wake is InitHeadphone.exe. This file also needs 2 other dll files from the Hotkey folder, hp.dll and NAudio.dll. Running the exe initializes the headphone jack again until the next sleep/wake. Unfortunately I haven't found a way to make the exe run on its own after waking up but you can assign it to a hotkey or run a shortcut to the desktop. This works on my P651SE and I havent't tried this anywhere else. I also made a zip with the required 3 files.

 

Good find! One could write a simple .bat file to run the .exe file automatically.

 

If you could do this in a way that would run the file when the system is brought out of sleep, that would be ideal. You could probably create some kind of AutoHotKey script, but that's another piece of software that would need to be installed. For me anyway, I'll keep the Clevo software installed. It's not too obtrusive, and I'm actually finding myself using its "Quiet" fan profile. It's doing a surprisingly good job of keeping noise down during less intensive jobs and ramping up the fans when I load up a game.

 

You should be able to set up a batch file to run automatically at startup. There utilities to suspend or resume on sleep and wake as you mentioned. At least something like autohotkey doesn't use a lot of resources, and you can also add in some more functionality to it as well.

 

Do you notice your CPU speed throttle at all? Was wondering whether this just enables passive cooling or it changes the threshold at which the fans rev (haven't been able to test myself, yet).

 

The CPU on my system was de-lidded and re-pasted, so don't take my word as gospel. In the worst-case scenario of a multi-threaded AIDA64 stress test, the CPU will get to 99-100 degrees but not drop below 4 GHz.