USB Headset Dropping Connection at Random

Good morning!
So I recently completed a planned refresh of a portion of the company I work for. Our new equipment consists of stock Surface Pro 8, Dell Latitude 5530, and Dell Optiplex 7000 machines, all imaged up with Windows 11 Professional. Our phone provider is Zoom, so we are 100% softphones at the company, using the computers themselves with headsets as phones. Our headset of choice has been the Plantronic Blackwire 3210 USB-A Headset. An issue has popped up which has me absolutely stumped. The headsets appear to all stop working randomly. Sometimes just the mic, sometimes both the mic and headphone. Sometimes it will work for days, other times for minutes or hours before it has to be putzed with.
When I troubleshoot, Windows notification sounds will play though the headset, but no other sounds (like from Zoom or music) will come through. A restart will not always fix the problem. As near as I can tell, the only machines that seem to be affected are Dell users; the folks that got the new Optiplex 7000 and Latitude 5530 models. I have not yet gotten a call from any Surface Pro 8 users.

I have done the following:

• Performed driver updates via Dell Command Update.
• Uninstalled and removed the audio drivers from device manager, restarted, and updated drivers via Dell Command Update.
• Swapped out the headsets with brand new headsets of the same model.
• Made a number of tweaks to audio settings that I can't all immediately recall, because of how many and how rapidly I made them.
• Rolled back drivers.

It feels to me like a driver issue between the audio hardware and the headsets. I don't think Windows 11 is a culprit; I've mostly discounted 11 as a culprit because I have users in my location that I upgraded to Windows 11, but on older hardware (Optiplex 7080, 7070, 7090, and Latitude 5520 models), and I haven't gotten any reports of issues from them yet, and they've been deployed for months on the same image, rather than days or weeks.

I'm open to suggestions and ideas; I'm completely flummoxed; maybe we need a different USB headset? Is there a power setting someplace I'm missing?

In the meantime, I am testing out a different USB headset on a local user (A Kraken headset; it's all I have immediately available, lol). It's not apples to apples, but it would narrow things down a bit.

TIA for any suggestions.

jpjordan357 said:

When I troubleshoot, Windows notification sounds will play though the headset, but no other sounds (like from Zoom or music) will come through.

Click to expand...

Have you checked the volume mixer?

garlin said:

Have you checked the volume mixer?

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Yes. Everything looks kosher in there. I'll update the OP, but upon further analysis, it looks like AUDIODG.EXE is crashing when calling for a maxxaudiocapture64.dll. That would explain why none of the other models are exhibiting this; the Latitude 5530 is the only device that has this feature at all, and it has something to do with audio enhancements (independent of the device manager settings). This particular headset doesn't like the MaxxAudio crap getting in its business and crashes. The test Kraken headset worked flawlessly all day, though, so other USB headsets are fine with it. I installed the MaxxAudio Pro for Dell app from the Windows store, where you can turn off these enhancements. Not pleased at having to do this, but so far that seems to have worked. We'll see what comes from it.

Additionally, the Optiplex 7000s were not affected, as first thought. That turned out to be grave user error.

One of the /r/Dell Reddits suggested you can disable the audio services, this might save you from installing any UWP (Store) apps.

Repeat for: RtkAudUService, WavesSvc, RtkAudioUniversalService, WavesAudioService, WavesSysSvc

garlin said:

One of the /r/Dell Reddits suggested you can disable the audio services, this might save you from installing any UWP (Store) apps.

Code:

sc config RtkAudUService start= disabled
net stop RtkAudUService

Repeat for: RtkAudUService, WavesSvc, RtkAudioUniversalService, WavesAudioService, WavesSysSvc

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I will try this out, thank you very much!

Easiest solution, disable the onboard audio in the bios (if even possible on a Dell) seeing as it is not needed at all when using USB audio.

stormy13 said:

Easiest solution, disable the onboard audio in the bios (if even possible on a Dell) seeing as it is not needed at all when using USB audio.

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I'm a fan of this solution; however, end users being fickle as they are, I would immediately get complaints when they decided that they didn't want to use the headsets for this or that reason.

Well, neither the MaxxAudio software not disabling the services has solved this issue.

jpjordan357 said:

Well, neither the MaxxAudio software not disabling the services has solved this issue.

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Hi Jordon,

I am facing the same issue.
May I know what exact action has you done to fix the issue?

So, to edit AGAIN; the Optiplex 7000 series are also affected by this; I just don't have many users. The suggestion above about disabling the various services was ineffective. So far the most effective fix has been manually installing the latest drivers (not relying on Dell Command), then installing the MaxxAudio Pro for Dell app from the store. This has fixed all but one user, but I'm pretty sure I hadn't implemented a fix on that user yet. So, 3 out of 4 seem to be fixed, according to the event logs.

In the sound settings, did you disable all other mic input and set your headsets as default communucation device?

badrobot said:

In the sound settings, did you disable all other mic input and set your headsets as default communucation device?

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Oh yes. That was all the in the first stages. The sound driver is crashing outright, per the event logs (see above)

Good news, everyone! I spoke at length with Dell engineering today, and they have actually been working on this issue for some time; specifically with Plantronics devices. They expect to have a fix for this soon.

Dell engineering is still looking into it; I've been trying fixes as they've been coming up with them.

We also got the problem with only somes of our Latitude 7430 and i tried everythings, for some it helps reinstall the audio driver and for some other nothing helps.
I already tried updating all drivers and disabling the services of WaveAudio.
how did you contact the Dell Support for some support for Business customer?

I managed to solve the problem with my clients with reinstalling the Audio drivers and MaxAudiopro. Thanks for the hint @jpjordan357

CundC said:

I managed to solve the problem with my clients with reinstalling the Audio drivers and MaxAudiopro. Thanks for the hint @jpjordan357

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I'm glad you were able to resolve the issue! Dell is still getting a final solution for the issue, from my contact.

@jpjordan357

Any updates from Dell on this? We are having the same issues with our Optiplex 7000.

jmac88888 said:

@jpjordan357

Any updates from Dell on this? We are having the same issues with our Optiplex 7000.

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Yes, sorry, Dell indicated to me last week or the week that driver fix from Intel is taking longer than they expected. The issue occurs when the headset receives certain frequencies (that's how it was described to me). Therefore, Dell would be implementing a driver that would restrict headsets from operating at that problem frequency until a proper fix can be made. I would check the driver database at Dell or run Dell Command to check for audio driver updates. I believe they may have released the patched/restricted driver this week?

And then never buy Plantronics headsets again, lol.

I appreciate the response! Hopefully we will see something soon. Please let us know if you hear anything else from Dell.

Agreed with Plantronics. We are starting to test out Jabra in the next week or so.

Thanks!