Realtek HD Audio Manager is among the most common and useful software that Windows users have on their PCs without even realising it. The HD Audio Manager is essentially the GUI end of the Realtek HD Audio Driver, which is the default sound driver for the majority of PC sound cards (including those integrated into the motherboard). Quite often it’s on your PC, but you can’t even find it using Windows search.
Jul 20, 2019 Alternate Ways to Install Realtek HD Audio Driver; While we can update Realtek audio driver from Device Manager, there are also other ways which can do the job in a few clicks. For example, you can directly download the audio driver from the website of your motherboard manufacturer. This way you will be sure that the audio driver is correct. Mar 08, 2018 How To Install Realtek HD Audio Drivers In Windows 10 Tutorial In this Windows 10 Tutorial I will be showing you how easy it is to install the latest version of Realtek HD Audio Drivers.
So how do you find Realtek HD Audio Manager, and how do you update and reinstall the Realtek drivers? We have everything you need to know here.
Related: Headphones Not Working in Windows 10? Here Are Some Fixes
Where Is Realtek HD Audio Manager?
Before tweaking Realtek HD Audio Manager, you need to actually know where to find it. The default installation directory for Realtek should be “C:Program FilesRealtekAudioHDA.” Here you’ll find a large number of seemingly executable (.exe) files, but the one that really matters is “RtkNGUI64.” Double-clicking this will open Realtek HD Audio Manager.
You can make various tweaks here to your sound settings that you can’t elsewhere. (For instance, click the cog icon, then Option, and you can enable the handy feature to make two separate audio devices play sound simultaneously – good if you want to use speakers to listen to game sounds while chatting to someone on a headset.
Another useful option is “Display icon in notification area” which will let you access the HD Audio Manager from the notification area rather than its well-hidden directory.
Also, click the cog icon, then “About” to see your driver version. This is important if you want to install Realtek drivers manually.
How to Update Realtek HD Audio Drivers
Updating Realtek HD Audio Manager should be simple. Click the Start button, then type ‘device manager,’ and click Device Manager when it shows up.
Next, click the arrow next to Audio inputs and outputs to show a list of your audio devices. You should see something along the lines of “Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio).” Right-click this and click “Update driver.” (Windows should normally keep this driver updated automatically, but it’s been known not to work.)
To reinstall your driver, right-click it in Device Manager, click “Uninstall device,” then reboot your PC.
If Realtek updates, that’s good news, but another caveat is that the latest driver isn’t always the best one, and maybe you want to pick a different version of the driver. Or sometimes the latest drivers provided by your motherboard aren’t the latest ones available, and you may be missing out on the best sound quality.
Related: How to Fix Microphone Not Working Issue in Windows 10
Install Realtek HD Audio Driver Manually
To update your Realtek HD Audio Driver manually, you should go to this thread at Tenforums where they regularly provide links to the latest Realtek Audio Drivers in the Microsoft Catalog. (This thread does a good job of explaining the differences between Realtek Audio drivers). The folks there have different opinions on which drivers sound best, so have a read and make your own decision.
When it comes to installing the actual drivers from the Microsoft Catalog, they come as CAB files. After downloading the CAB file, you need to use an extraction tool like 7-Zip or WinRAR to extract the CAB file into its own folder.
![Manually Install Realtek Audio Driver Manually Install Realtek Audio Driver](/uploads/1/2/4/8/124808351/346849336.png)
Once you’ve extracted it, go back to Device Manager, right-click the Realtek High Definition Audio driver and click “Update driver.”
After that, click “Browse my computer for driver software,” then on the next screen click “Let me pick from a list of available drivers.”
![How to install realtek audio driver in windows xp How to install realtek audio driver in windows xp](/uploads/1/2/4/8/124808351/695428012.jpg)
Click “Have Disk,” Browse, then go to your extracted CAB folder and pick the first “.inf” file from it.
Once you’ve done that, click OK and the driver should install.
Conclusion
That should get you up to speed with the mysterious workings of Realtek HD Audio Manager and its drivers. It’s worth remembering that Windows is generally good at updating and matching up the right audio driver for your PC, so if you’re happy with your sound quality and have no issues, then there’s no point in doing a lot of dabbling.
Either way, it’s always worth knowing where the Manager app is hiding, as that has some neat functions.
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HomeHow ToHow to Install and Update Realtek HD Audio Manager on Windows 10
Realtek HD Audio Manager is a popular application which allows you to tweak audio-related settings on Windows computers. For many users, the Realtek HD Audio Manager was the go-to place for enhancing the overall sound quality. However, due to some major changes in Windows 10, the application keeps disappearing and sometimes does not work at all. But you don’t have to worry. We have done thorough research on Realtek HD Audio Manager and found some easy ways to enable it. Apart from that, I have also shared simple and easy steps to update Realtek HD Audio drivers using both automatic and manual method. So having said that, let’s briefly learn about Realtek HD Audio Manager first and then move to the steps.
Install and Update Realtek HD Audio Manager
Before we start our article, let us first talk a little about Realtek HD Audio Manager. If you are someone who is already quite familiar with the subject, you can skip to the next section.
What is the Realtek HD Audio Manager
Realtek HD Audio Manager is an advanced application which lets you configure various sound settings. The reason Realtek HD Audio Manager is so ubiquitous in Windows computers is that most of the PCs have Realtek’s sound card. Besides the hardware, Realtek also provides an audio driver and a standalone app called Realtek HD Audio Manager to manage audio configuration.
Now, what exactly does Realtek HD Audio Manager offer? Well, to begin with, you can enhance the sound with equalizer, mixer, and different pre-defined sound profiles. You can even create your custom sound profile as well. Further, you can enable features like noise suppression and echo cancellation. Gta v ps3 free download. The application also lets you enable multi-streaming playback which basically means you can stream multiple audios to different output devices simultaneously.
All in all, Realtek HD Audio Manager is an excellent utility and if you are an audiophile, you should definitely use it more often. So now let’s go through some common issues users face with Realtek HD Audio Manager and learn how to fix them.
Download Realtek HD Audio Manager for Windows 10
To give you some context, Realtek HD Audio Manager was easily accessible on Windows 7. It was available out of the box and used to sit in the system tray. However, with Windows 10, Microsoft cut down on many additional utilities to make the OS minimal and light. But long-time Windows users are clearly not happy with it.
Nevertheless, if you want to access Realtek HD Audio Manager on Windows 10, you don’t have to download anything. It’s because the application is already installed, but hidden from users’ direct access. Here is you can access it.
Note: While the guide is for Window 10 PCs, the same instructions apply to Windows 7 users as well. If for some reason Realtek HD Audio Manager is not working on Windows 7 too, you can follow the same steps below.
1. Open the C drive or whichever drive you have installed Windows 10 on. After that, navigate to Program Files -> Realtek -> Audio -> HDA. Here, you will find “RtkNGUI64”, open it.
2. Voila, there you have the Realtek HD Audio Manager. Now go ahead and configure the music as per your taste.
3. Also, if you want to use Realtek HD Audio Manager regularly, just right-click on “RtkNGUI64” and send to “Desktop”.
In case, “RtkNGUI64” is not present or the Realtek folder does not exist in the OS drive, move to the next section to resolve it.
Fix Realtek HD Audio Manager Missing Error
Most of the time, Realtek HD Audio Manager is missing because the audio driver is not properly installed on your PC. So to install the dedicated Realtek driver for your sound card, follow these steps.
1. Right-click on the Windows Start button and open “Device Manager”.
2. Here, double click on “Audio inputs and outputs” to expand it. Now, right-click on “Speaker/Headphone (2- Realtek High Definition Audio)” and click on “Update Driver”. If it shows “High Definition Audio Device”, it’s the same thing.
3. On the next screen, click on “Search automatically for updated driver software”. Now, your PC will find the dedicated driver online and install it thereafter.
4. After a few minutes, the installation will be complete. Now, restart the PC and navigate to the Realtek folder as I mentioned in the above section and you will find Realtek HD Audio Manager.
Update Realtek HD Audio Driver Manually
Sometimes, the automatic driver update from Microsoft’s server does not work properly. In such cases, you will have to manually install the drivers. Do note that this will also fix any audio problem you were facing including microphone and headphone issues. Having said that, here is how you can do it.
1. Open the Device Manager again and right-click on “Speaker/Headphone (2- Realtek High Definition Audio)” or “High Definition Audio Device”. Here, click on “Update driver”.
2. After that, choose “Browse my computer for driver software”.
3. On the next window, click on “Let me pick from…” at the bottom.
Symbol ds6707 manual. 4. Here, select “Audio Endpoint” or “Realtek HD Audio Driver” and click on the “Next” button.
5. Finally, the sound drivers will be updated to the latest version.
6. In case, Realtek HD Audio Manager is still not working, you can download the drivers manually from Windows Update Catalog. Click on this link and download the latest build based on your Windows 10 version. After that, extract the CAB file using WinRAR or 7-Zip.
7. To find the Windows 10 version, press “Windows” and “I” keys at once and navigate to System -> switch to About tab at the bottom -> scroll down and find the specifications.
8. Once you have downloaded the dedicated driver, go to step 3 again and then click on “Have Disk”.
9. Here, click on the “Browse” button and locate the extracted CAB folder.
10. Select the first INF file and click on the “Open” button. The audio driver will be installed instantly. Now, restart your computer and Realtek HD Audio Manager should be in place.
Alternate Ways to Install Realtek HD Audio Driver
While we can update Realtek audio driver from Device Manager, there are also other ways which can do the job in a few clicks. For example, you can directly download the audio driver from the website of your motherboard manufacturer. This way you will be sure that the audio driver is correct and will eventually enable Realtek HD Audio Manager. Generally, the file is in EXE format so you just have to run it and install like a standard Windows application. You have to do a bit of Googling, but that’s about it.
Install Realtek Audio Driver Windows 10
Another way is to download the audio driver directly from Realtek’s website. It provides a bundled EXE file which has support from Windows Vista to 10 and for both 32 and 64 bit. You just have to download the EXE file and run it. Depending on your system configuration, the installer will itself choose the correct driver and install it. Voila, you just installed the latest audio driver with Realtek HD Audio Manager built-in. Enjoy!
Best Settings for Realtek HD Audio Manager on Windows 10
So now that we have learned how to enable Realtek HD Audio Manager and resolve some related issues, let us find out the best settings for Realtek HD Audio Manager. In this section, we will learn about the various sound configurations which you can apply in Realtek HD Audio Manager.
First of all, let me make it clear that taste in music is a subjective thing. Also, sound quality vastly differs from different sets of speakers to headphones. So there is no one-size-fits-all sound profile. The best way to find your sound profile which suits your ears is by adjusting the equalizer and finding the perfect balance. Having said that, here are some general tips which may help you bring out the best sound.
If you are using a headphone with your PC, make sure Stereo sound is enabled. And if you are using speakers, the pre-defined Rock or Bass profiles do a great job. Also, you can increase Treble a notch high, but make sure you find it convenient to your ears. Besides, when you are using a microphone for video calls or recording, make sure Noise Cancellation feature is enabled. Apart from that, always set the frequency to 44100 Hz as it’s the most common sampling frequency for all kinds of media. All in all, you should use Realtek HD Audio Manager more often and mess with the Equalizer to get the best out it.
SEE ALSO: 11 Best Free Tools to Download and Install Drivers in Windows
Enable Realtek HD Audio Manager and Experience a New Wave of Sound
So that was our article on Realtek HD Audio Manager, its issues, solutions and a lot more. If you want to get the best sound experience on Windows, you should seriously use Realtek HD Audio Manager. The app lets you tweak several audio settings and it does make a lot of difference. In case you are unable to find Realtek HD Audio Manager, I have included an easier and automatic method which can fix the app as well as many related issues. And if the automatic method is not working, you can, of course, install the drivers using the manual way. So that is all from us. If you found the article informative, do let us know in the comment section below.
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