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Realtek HD Audio Manager – How to Download, Install & Uninstall

RealTek HD Audio Manager is one of most popular audio chip being used across wide range of desktop and laptop devices. This article is all about RealTek HD Audio Manager, how to Download, Install and Uninstall. Also fix the issues related to Realtek HD Audio Manager doesn’t appear in system tray.

How To Download Realtek HD Audio Manager?

Realtek HD Audio Manager is an open source freeware available to download on the official website of Realtek. There are multiple variations of the software available on the website classified on the basis of the Windows version and Motherboard model.

To download the Realtek HD Audio Manager, follow the steps provided below:

  1. Head over to the official website of Realtek by clicking the given link. “https://www.realtek.com
  2. Now, you will be redirected to the homepage of the website.
    Realtek website homepage
  3. Once you are on the website, click on the menu icon provided on the upper left corner of the website.
    Menu on Realtek website
  4. After clicking, A side menu will appear. Select “Downloads” option from the side menu.
    Downloads option on Realtek website
  5. Now, a drop-down menu will appear. Select “Computer Peripheral ICs” option from the drop-down menu.
    Computer Peripheral ICs option on Realtek Website
  6. On the following page, you’ll see all the available computer peripheral ICs. Now, click on the small arrow provided in front of the “Product Line” option to open a drop-down menu. Select “PC audio codecs” option from the menu.
    PC Audio codecs option on Realtek Website
  7. Now, again click on the product line menu and select the “High Definition Audio Codecs” option.
    High definition audio codecs option on realtek website
  8. Now, you will be redirected to the High Definition Audio Codec page. Here, you will see 3 types of audio codecs available as shown in the image. Kindly select the one which is required for your motherboard.
    All available High Definition Audio codecs on Realtek Website
  9. Once you have selected the variant, you will be redirected to the download page. Here, you must select the proper version according to your installed windows version. (32Bit or 64Bit)
    Variants of Realtek HD Audio manager
  10. To select a version, click on the small blue icon provided on the left side of the product.
  11. Now, to continue, you must provide your email address. So, on the next page, make sure that “I accept the above” option is checked and enter your email address in the space provided below.
    Procedure to download Realtek HD Audio manager
  12. Now click on the “Download this file” option. You will be notified that the download link has been sent to your email.
  13. Head over to your email inbox. you’ll see a mail from Realtek which includes the download link of the software. If you did not receive any mail, kindly wait a few minutes or try a different email address.
    email from Realtek
  14. After you have opened the mail, you will see the description of the software product. Click on “Link” provided in the download section to proceed with the download.
    Download link for Realtek HD Audio manager
  15. Now, you must verify a captcha to begin the download. Make sure to get the captcha verified quickly as the link is valid only for 5 minutes. After entering the correct answer, click on “Go!”.
    Captcha required to download Realtek HD Audio manager
  16. Now, your download will begin.

How To Install Realtek HD Audio Manager?

The installation procedure of the Realtek HD Audio manager is fairly easy and straightforward. Follow the steps provided below to install the Realtek HD Audio Manager :

  1. First, double click on the executable file which was downloaded from the website.
    Realtek HD Audio Manager executable file
  2. You will receive a prompt from “User Account Control” about granting administrating rights to the setup. Kindly click on “Yes” to proceed with the installation.
  3. Now, the software will extract all the required files automatically. This can take up to 2 minutes depending on your system.
  4. Once everything has been organized, the software installation window will open as shown in the image below. Click on “Next” to proceed with the installation.
    Realtek HD Audio Manager Setup-1
  5. Rest of the installation is automated. So sit back and relax while the installation gets completed.
    Installation of Realtek HD Audio Manager
  6. Once the installation is completed, the software requires a system reboot to finalize the procedure. Make sure you reboot the system right after the installation to avoid any complications. In the final window, click on the “I want to Restart m7y computer now” option and click on “Finish”. Make sure you have closed all the other windows before clicking “Finish” as your system will reboot and might face the loss of unsaved data.
    Finalizing the installation of Realtek HD Audio Manager
  7. Once you have rebooted your system, the software will be completely installed on the system.
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How To Disable/Uninstall Realtek HD Audio Manager?

If you wish to disable the Realtek HD Audio Manager temporarily, follow the steps provided below:

  1. Right click on “This PC”
  2. Click on “Properties”.
    This PC- Properties
  3. Now, select “Device Manager” provided in the upper left corner.
    Device manager under system properties
  4. Now you will see the device manager window.
  5. Double click on “Sound, Video and Game controllers” option. There you will find “Realtek High Definition Audio”.
    Realtek HD Audio manager in device manager
  6. Right click on “Realtek High Definition Audio” and click on “Properties”
    Realtek HD audio manager properties option
  7. Click on “Driver” tab.
    Driver tab in Realtek properties
  8. Now, If you want to temporarily disable the driver, select “Disable Device” option. You can re-enable the driver from this same window.
    Disable Device option in Realtek
  9. If you wish to uninstall the driver permanently, select “Uninstall Device” option from the window. This will remove Realtek HD Audio Manager completely from your system.

What are Audio Drivers?

Audio output is a very important aspect in almost every Windows user’s day to day life. Every user certainly requires high-end audio output from their systems. Even though the quality of audio output is predominantly dependant on the audio output hardware, it is partially dependant on the audio distribution software as well. These audio delivering software are called as “Audio drivers”. Windows 10 has might have strong built-in support when it comes to sound management, but it still lacks in many aspects. Hence, users tend to use third-party audio drivers instead of built-in windows drivers. These drivers overcome the default drivers in many facets such as Audio level management, Audio balance, Audio turbulence control Etc.

What is the Realtek HD Audio Manager?

There are plenty of different audio drivers available on the web, but Realtek HD Audio Manager is certainly the most renowned and appraised audio driver out of the list. Realtek HD Audio Manager is developed by the Chinese company “Realtek Semiconductor Corp” which was founded way back in 1987. Due to the increase in the popularity of multimedia, Realtek released its first audio chipset in the year 2009. Due to the low price window and phenomenal audio output, Realtek became very popular in the audio market. As of today, almost every popular motherboard brand like Asus, Gigabyte and MSI provide a Realtek chipset for sound output. This makes the Realtek HD Audio Manager the perfect audio driver to obtain remarkable audio quality.

Some features of Realtek HD Audio Manager

Realtek HD audio manager is equipped with tonnes of useful features like:

  1. 16/20/24-bit Pulse Code Modulation
    Pulse code modulation is a process of converting analog audio signals into digital audio format. This digital audio format has a specific range called “Bit Depth”.  This bit depth represents the information contained by each depth. Thus, The higher the bit depth, the better the audio output quality gets. When it comes to Realtek HD Audio Manager, it supports bit depth up to 24-bit. Hence, the users can expect a decent sound output from Realtek HD Audio Manager irrespective of the audio file format.
  2. 5.1 channel audio support
    Another useful feature in Realtek HD Audio Manager is the 5.1 channel audio support. 5.1 channel audio support is mainly required in the installation of home theatres. the “5.1” stands for five full bandwidth channels and one low-frequency effect (Bass) channel. As this system are quite complicated in the sense of operation, they require suitable software to operate properly. If the proper software is not used to drive the heavy systems like a 5.1 setup, a user cannot completely enjoy the system with its full effect. Realtek HD Audio Manager gets the job done in such cases. The complete 5.1 channel audio support provides proper instructions to the output hardware in terms of sound propagation and results in a delightful audio output from the hardware.
  3. Various sound customization options
    There are multiple sound customization options available in the Realtek HD Audio Manager. This feature come in handy whilst listening to music.  The user can personalize the sound output according to the type of music playing at the moment. There are a bunch of variations available in Realtek HD Audio Manager like Pop, Live, Club, Rock Etc. The user can select any one of these options to aggravate their listening experience.
    Equalizer in Realtek HD Audio Manager
    There is another sound customization option available in Realtek HD Audio Manager called “Environment”. This feature can be used to set up a virtual environment for the track. This feature creates a constructive effect like the selected environment. The variations available for the environment effect are as below:
    Environment effect in Realtek HD Audio Manager
    The users who belong to the audiophile community can utilize these features to obtain the required comfort and soothing in the sound.
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Do I Need The Realtek HD Audio Manager?

You must have faced this question at least once before you came here that whether you actually require a dedicated third-party sound driver or not. Well, Don’t worry. We will explain why there is a need to use Realtek HD Audio Manager instead of Windows default drivers.

No doubt Windows 10 gets better and better every day with all the new updates and features. But, Windows 10 is also reportedly buggy and cause a lot of issues in daily usage. If you are using default sound drivers instead of Realtek HD Audio Manager, you might face some bugs related to the sound output. Even though many bugs have a possible solution, some of the bugs are perpetual and must be solved by the developer team of Windows 10. If you undergo such an issue, you might have to wait for the consequent Windows update to resolve the problem. In some cases, this could be delayed by a lengthy period of time leaving you with an undesirable or at some point, no sound output at all.

Another reason to account Realtek HD Audio Manager instead of the stock driver is the multiple features available in the Realtek HD Audio Manager which the default drivers lack by a huge margin. Most of the time, default drivers are unable to drive heavy output hardware such as a 5.1 or 7.1 Home theatre. In such cases, Third-party sound drivers like Realtek HD Audio Manager gets the job done. As the development of such software is primarily focused on the delivery of audio, there are lots of workarounds provided in the software that a user can follow to get the desired output.

To conclude the answer, we will ensure that the user experience varies by a great extent after the continuous use of the software. We will recommend you to switch to the Realtek HD Audio Manager to experience a decent and personalized sound delivery.

Realtek HD Audio Manager Does Not Appear in System Tray

Using the Realtek HD Audio Manager is quite upfront. You can launch the software by simply clicking the speaker icon available in the system tray.
Realtek HD Audio manager in system tray

But sometimes, it has been reported by users that the icon does not appear even after the successful installation of the software. If you are undergoing similar circumstances, worry not. There are multiple solutions to resolve this problem. Follow the steps below to clear this problem:

  1. Right click on “This PC”
  2. Click on “Properties”. This will open system properties.
  3. Now, select “Device Manager” provided in the upper left corner.
  4. Now you will see the device manager window. Here, you can examine all installed drivers on your system.
  5. Double click on “Sound, Video and Game controllers” option. There you will find “Realtek High Definition Audio”. If you don’t see Realtek High Definition Audio in the list, you must re-install the software again.
  6. Right click on “Realtek High Definition Audio” and click on “Properties”
  7. Click on “Driver” tab.
  8. Now, select “Update Driver” option.
  9. Now, you can update your driver by 2 methods. You can either Search for an update online or you can use locally installed files for the update.

Method 1: Online update

  1. Select “Search automatically for updated driver software”.
  2. Now, the system will automatically search for the updated driver online.
  3. Now, follow the on-screen instructions to install the updated driver, if found.
  4. Close the window after the process is completed. You must reboot your system for changes to take effect.
  5. Once you have rebooted, the “Realtek HD Audio” icon will appear in your system tray.
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Method 2: Use local files

  1. Select “Browse my computer for driver software”.
  2. Now select “Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer”
  3. Now, make sure that “Show compatible hardware” option is checked and select “Realtek High Definition Audio” and click “Next”.
    Realtek driver update
  4. Now, your system will update the Realtek HD Audio driver files or replace any broken or missing file.
  5. Close the window after successful completion of the process.
  6. You must reboot the system afterward.
  7. The Realtek HD Audio Manager icon will appear in the system tray after the reboot.

How To Use Realtek HD Audio Manager?

Using Realtek HD Audio manager is quite simple due to its simplified user interface. There are basically two main options available on the main window, Speakers and Microphone. As the name suggests, both the options can be used to configure respective hardware.
Realtek HD Audio Manager UI-1

Speakers

In the speakers’ tab, you will see multiple speaker related options. This options can be utilized to carry out multiple speaker related customizations. Speaker-related features are as follows:
Main Volume
In this area, you will find the basic volume related choices. In the further left side, There is a slider which you can use to adjust the stereo balance. By default, the slider is set at dead center but you can change it according to your comfort. Ahead of the balance slider, there is a large slider which can be used to adjust the volume level. There is also a “Mute” button on the right side of the volume bar. You can use this button to mute or unmute the audio output.
Speaker Configuration
In this tab, you can test the hardware output. There is a “Play” button provided which you can use to play a small sample of music out of your connected hardware. The audio sample will be played out by both the left and right driver simultaneously. Hence, you can easily compare the audio output from both sides easily.
Sound Effects
In the sound effects tab, there are a few more customization options available. The first option is the “Environment” option. You can use this option to create a Virtual environment through which the music will be played. This feature comes in handy to experience various levels in the audio. The environments are represented by icons. Going from left to right, the virtual environment gets bigger in size. The next option is the “Equalizer”. This feature is very beneficial as the audio output can be set according to the genre of the music playing at the moment. There are four main genres available named as Pop, Live, Club, and Rock. But, there a lot more genres available in the drop-down menu presented in front of “Equalizer”. There is a blue equalizer button provided in the UI which you can use to open detailed equalizer interface. From there, you can customize the aspects of the audio manually. Last but not least, there is a karaoke option which can be used to minimize the vocals in a music track so it can be used for the purpose of karaoke singing.
Default Format
The last option in speaker configuration is “Default Format”. In this tab, you can select the default format quality of the playback. The feature is useful while using the CD or DVD based audio source.

Microphone

Realtek HD Audio Manager also deals with the microphone customizations. The options are somewhat similar as compared to the speaker tab.
Microphone effects
There are two important microphone based options available. The first one is “Noise suppression”. This option is very important to those who utilize their system for various communication purposes. The “Noise Suppression” can be enabled to muffle almost all the background noise so that the audio input will be clear and noise-free. Another microphone based feature is the “Acoustic echo cancellation”. This feature might not be required by all users but it is quite important for those who suffer from the audio leak from their headphones. Once this option is enabled, the Realtek HD Audio Manager will detect the audio leak and cancel out the excess audio from getting registered through the mic.

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1 thought on “Realtek HD Audio Manager – How to Download, Install & Uninstall”

  1. I have a Lenovo Legion Y530 laptop, and I could never find the Realtek HD Audio Control Panel in my system, and when I reinstalled the provided driver from the manufacturer’s website, the result was always the same. Does RealTek have any available drivers that are currently up to date that might work with my system? I have tried to reach out to my tech support, but they could never give a straight answer.

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