Windows 10: Headphone Problems with Realtek HD Audio

Ever since I've upgraded to windows 11, I've had problems with my headphones. Also to note, I've never used headphones that connect using a jack with my pc. I just upgraded to the Arctis Nova 1 and they work great on my mac. I plugged them into my pc and its stuck on mono audio. I've looked through Asus's SupremeFX to see if it's a setting there and nothing. I checked the sound settings and even tried updating my audio drivers. The weird thing is when I updated my audio drivers it didn't update the app with the newest settings, so I've been thinking it has something to do with this. I've been

:)

 

Realtek HD audio headphone jack

Realtek HD audio headphone jack not listed separately in device manager, headphones don't

 

Realtek HD Audio Manager thinks that headphones are a microphone

The headphones have no microphone attached to it. There is only one cord/plug.

I have popup enabled for when Realtek Audio Manager finds a device.





The ports being greyed out mean that there is no device plugged in (that it can notice). If a port is black, like in the above screenshots, that means Realtek HD Audio Manager believes something's plugged in there. The problem is that the Audio Manager thinks
the headphones are plugged into the microphone port, but they are actually in the headphone port.

If I go over to the microphone tab like you suggest, nothing changes.

 

Realtek HD Audio not switching to Headphone settings

I'm running Windows 10 Pro v.1607 build 14393.447 on an Asus Z170-A motherboard with Realtek HD Audio ALC892. I have speakers connected to the rear of the motherboard, and headphones via the front panel port.

A few weeks ago, the Realtek HD Audio Manager started behaving oddly. When I would plug in my Headphones, it wouldn't detect them, and would continue playing through the Speakers. Restarting seemed to fix that, but introduced a new issue.

Previously, when I would plug in my Headphones it would recognize them and switch to the Headphone settings and volume setting. It stopped doing that, and continued to display 5.1 Speakers in the Speaker Configuration and use the Speaker volume control. I keep my Speaker volume set to 50%, and my Headphone volume to 8%, but now it was always on the Speaker volume setting.

I tried updating to the latest ASUS driver, no difference. It would recognize the headphones when plugged in, but would stay on the Speaker settings and volume.

I uninstalled the driver, and Windows automatically replaced it with the default Microsoft driver, and it started working normally again. As soon as I plugged in my headphones it would switch the Playback device to Headphones and the headphone volume. Unplug, and it went back to Speakers and the speaker volume. Fine, I can live without the Realtek HD Audio Manager.

Yesterday I see that the volume icon on the Taskbar has a red X through it, and I have no sound. Clicking on it, Windows tries to correct the problem and tells me that I should restart. I restart, and sound is back, but it no longer switches to the Headphone setting when I plug in my headphones. It switches the output from the rear to the front panel, but it stays on the Speaker setting and volume.

I try uninstalling the driver and installing the Realtek driver from their website. I install the driver I had downloaded a few weeks ago (I don't know what version since it's all listed as 2.80 on the site). It installed the Realtek HD Audio Manager, but no longer switches to the Headphone setting when I plug my headphones in.

I downloaded the most recent Realtek driver, 6.0.1.8004, and installed that. That replaced the Realtek HD Audio Manager with the ASUS branded Realtek HD Audio Manager, but still doesn't switch to Headphone settings.

I'm at my wits end trying to figure out how to fix this. I want it to go back to working how it used to, where I would plug in my headphones and it would switch to Headphone settings and the corresponding volume.