High Definition Audio Controller Driver Error

[Sunil Manohar]

My laptop crashed recently and when it restarted, there was no sound available. The sound icon in the taskbar says: "No speakers or headphones are plugged in".


Here is what I have done so far:

• Opened Device Manager to find the faulty driver. The driver in question is the "High Definition Audio Controller" driver under the "System Devices" tab. I have tried to update it online with no luck (the latest drivers are already installed), update it via list of drivers already present on my system (Code 10 error: The device cannot start), uninstalled it and tried to reinstall it via Windows Update and also automatic reinstall after restarting the system. The issue has persisted. I cannot rollback to the previous driver version as that option is greyed out.
• Run Memory Diagnostic checks, SFC checks and DISM checks and tried to repair the system via those. No system integrity violations found.
• Updated all device drivers either manually via Device Manager or Driver Updater software like IOBit Driver Booster 6/DriverPack Solutions.
• Updated GPU drivers to the latest version.
• Performed a Safe Boot to check if issue persists (it does) and also performed a clean boot to check for issue. The issue persisted when all third party services along with startup items were disabled. So the issue is most definitely related to Microsoft.
• Restarted Windows Audio Service from the Services window.
• Updated Windows to the latest version. I am currently running on Windows 10 Home Single Language v1903 with OS Build 18362.175. On a side note, I was facing the same problems in the last version (v1809) as well without any solutions, but it went away for a while after I updated my system. So rolling back to my previous build will not help.
• Selectively uninstalled Windows Updates from the past few days to check if the issue was update related.
• Run a system scan to check for malware via both Windows Security and Bitdefender Total Security. Both turned up negative.
• Checked registry in H_KEY for any errors.
• Tried to find alternative driver without any success (The problematic driver is hdaudbus.inf, located in C:\Windows\INF)
• Checked my laptop's manufacturer website for latest drivers.
• I shouldn't need to clarify this, but I obviously ran the Windows Troubleshooter for sound problems without any success.

I am currently on MSI GV 62 - 8RE, if it helps.

I would also appreciate if you would not suggest a clean reinstall of Windows. Given that this is primarily a WIndows OS issue, the problem will only reappear later down the line and I can't be reinstalling Windows every few weeks when this pops up again. But apart from this I am open to other suggestions. Please let me know if you need any other information.

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