Realtek UAD Driver Warning!

This morning I noticed a updated UAD driver on Majorgeeks.com. When I installed it I lost the equalizer in the Realtek Audio Console. While trying to fix the equalizer the console stopped working. I tried everything I could think of and nothing worked. I'm sure there was a way that I just didn't think of. I finally gave up and did a Macrium restore to fix the problem.

the so called Realtek UAD driver from Majorgeeks is most likely an "unofficial" version and does not officially support Windows 11, at least not yet.

uninstall those and revert back to using WHQL certified based UAD drivers provided by your PC manufacturer

erpster4 said:

the so called Realtek UAD driver from Majorgeeks is most likely an "unofficial" version and does not officially support Windows 11, at least not yet.

uninstall those and revert back to using WHQL certified based UAD drivers provided by your PC manufacturer

Click to expand...

They do work in Windows 11. It's just that one has to be careful if they try to upgrade to a newer driver and no I'm not going back to the OEM driver and lose my equalizer. By being able to adjust certain frequencies I'm better able to understand what words are actually being said. Hearing aids are very expensive and my insurance will only pay up to $500.00 for them. Having a working equalizer is much cheaper. It isn't a cure all but it does help.

though I might ask pal1000 himself one day if his UAD drivers will officially support Win11 by the time Win11 goes public in late October (at least with the 6.0.9200 something or 9300 versions which those will fully support Win11)

edit: while existing versions may work with the "insider builds" of Win11, it may be a different story for the "final" Win11 release coming this October

erpster4 said:

though I might ask pal1000 himself one day if his UAD drivers will officially support Win11 by the time Win11 goes public in late October (at least with the 6.0.9200 something or 9300 versions which those will fully support Win11)

edit: while existing versions may work with the "insider builds" of Win11, it may be a different story for the "final" Win11 release coming this October

Click to expand...

I did finally get the driver from the ASRock site to work with the help from sandyt on the Tenforums site.. What I did was to use the installer from ASRock to remove the driver. Then I did a restart without internet and let the installer finish loading the driver. Then I installed the Nahimic software from ASRock. I still didn't have a working equalizer until I used the Nahimic Companion software to do the updates. Now everything is working great. I also was also able to upgrade to the latest driver on the MUC site. Seeing how it needed Nahimic to get the soundcard working correctly I'm surprised that the software wasn't preloaded by PowerSpec.

Psst - Nahimic...

But good job on getting it all figured out!

johnlgalt said:

Psst - Nahimic...

But good job on getting it all figured out!

Click to expand...

I have to give full credit to sandyt on Tenforums.com. My spelling may be wrong but at least it worked. :)

Spelling corrected. :)

according to this post in the ASUS ROG forums by MoKiChU, he claims the 6.0.9200.1 version is the first one WHQL certified for Win11

though pal1000 did not get a chance to make a 9200 UAD version of his own; skipped it and released a 6.0.9205.1 version instead (recent UAD driver version available from Majorgeeks as well)

edited 7/24

erpster4 said:

according to this post in the ASUS ROG forums by MoKiChU, he claims the 6.0.9200.1 version is the first one WHQL certified for Win11

though pal1000 did not get a chance to make a 9200 UAD version of his own; skipped it and released a 6.0.9205.1 version instead (recent UAD driver version available from Majorgeeks as well)

edited 7/24

Click to expand...

My desktop is using the Realtek driver 6.0.9175.1 that I downloaded from the Microsoft Update Catalog. I might make a Macrium Image later today and give it a try.

erpster4 said:

according to this post in the ASUS ROG forums by MoKiChU, he claims the 6.0.9200.1 version is the first one WHQL certified for Win11

though pal1000 did not get a chance to make a 9200 UAD version of his own; skipped it and released a 6.0.9205.1 version instead (recent UAD driver version available from Majorgeeks as well)

edited 7/24

Click to expand...

I did try upgrading the driver. I downloaded and unzipped the file. Then I tried pointing Windows update to the folder and got the message that I was already using the best driver. Then I uninstalled my soundcard and driver. After that I did a restart without internet. I then tried running setup.cmd. It gets to the part where it keeps trying to uninstall files and can't find them. Windows Update did reinstall the driver I was using and as usual I lost my equalizer. In the end I restored my Macrium image to get back to get my soundcard working again. I'm sure there is something I'm doing wrong.

doing some recent realtek audio driver searches on Lenovo's support site seems to reveal some Win11 compatible Realtek UAD drivers that Lenovo has produced for some of their machines, such as this 9198 driver and this 9186 driver :)

maybe perhaps when Win11 is released to the general public in late October there should be a "Sound and Audio" section of this Eleven Forum, just like in the other forums

I just stick with the official drivers from the Microsoft Update Catalog and have no issues in Windows 11.

My ears aren't what they used to be, but I just stick with the Realtek sound drivers that came with the motherboard.
Never had any problems, doing it that way.

Ghot said:

My ears aren't what they used to be, but I just stick with the Realtek sound drivers that came with the motherboard.
Never had any problems, doing it that way.

Click to expand...

Yeah, you can do that too.
And even as your motherboard ages and driver updates stop, you can still get the manufacturer's updated driver by simply selecting a newer motherboard from the same manufacturer with Realtek audio.

I might've mentioned this in another thread, but my motherboard sound hardware is a custom configuration, like is the case for the majority of laptop motherboards--very few of them run correctly with the mainstream drivers available on vendor websites (AMD/nVidia) for discrete retail sound cards. Laptop owners most always have to have their drivers supplied by the manufacturer of their laptops--just as I have to get my sound drivers from Gigabyte specifically compiled for my GB motherboard. GB purchases the sound hardware from RealTek for inclusion in their GB motherboards, and RealTek under contract to GB supplies drivers for the custom hardware on a recurring basis--according to the details in each specific contract. It works in similar fashion between laptop manufacturers and RealTek (or any other hardware maker) when the laptops include RealTek hardware.

The Win10 drivers from GB for my motherboard run fine with Win11--in all of the Win11 builds we've seen so far, including .160. From time to time over the past couple of years I've tried to use other drivers--even those directly from RealTek's retail driver site (or from driver station or similar sites)--but they do not function well--they will work, but features and sound quality are noticeably inferior to the GB RealTek drivers, and certain features are completely missing in driver support unless I use the GB RealTek drivers specifically available for my motherboard, which are only available though the GB website. Same thing can happen with laptops, especially when the laptop is older. It can be problematic because sometimes the laptop maker will get slack about supplying Win10 or Win11 hardware drivers for a laptop that shipped with Win9x/WinXP, for instance. Laptop manufacturers will sometimes refuse to supply updated hardware drivers for a new OS for laptops that shipped with much earlier Windows OSes.

It stinks, but I have seen instances in which a customer is told by his laptop manufacturer, "We support your laptop with the OS it shipped with, including the drivers for your laptop hardware running under that OS, but if you want to move to a much newer OS then you should consider newer models of our laptops which natively ship with and support your desired new OS." Cold comfort--we're looking for updated drivers and they tell us that we can have them if we buy a new laptop... That's just one of my reasons for eschewing laptops over the years!

Microsoft, though, is coming to the fore by getting close to maintaining a solid driver paradigm from Win8 on to the present, which should alleviate some driver configuration problems. But, then, custom hardware is custom--not retail standardized--so there will always be that aspect of things to consider and complicate matters.