Solved Specific sounds not heard on PC calls ( receivers side)

All right, I have some updates for you all... and quite interesting, meaning that I dont understand what happened. But let me go step by step:

Something has changed between Sunday and yesterday ( or well they day before yesterday because yesterday I didnt get the change to try anything)
Today before trying the latest suggestions that were posted here, I made a call and to my surprise my mother could hear my children at the beginning I thought she was kidding but no!

I do not know how that is possible, after all so far the things that I have done which is disabling Realtek and trying to uninstall it as shown on the print screens also with no success as it keeps coming back. But I guess somewhere something did change along the way.

What I have also noticed is that since that same moment I have a constant noise, very low true, not really bothering . Its a noise that sounds like static on the tv and that I can seems to come from the middle of the keyboard. I took a small recording. This noise was not there before and dont know where it could be coming from or if I should worry.

Anyway, I went ahead and Disabled Realtek Audio Universal Service, and restarted. After restart, Realtek was back.




I also created a second user and tried, still the call went well.

Since I cannot really tell what made the sound issue apparently be gone, I am worried that it is going to come back the same way.....

I had a look at the update history to see if during this time an update took place, and what I saw is that on Sunday this update was installed 2023-09 Cumulative Update Preview for Windows 11
and the below driver updates , which I guess they happened with the disabling/uninstalling and auto reinstalling that I did. Not sure though about the Dell extension. I have not intentionally done anything with it.



Does any of this make sense to you? I mean I have spent 3 months with Dell Cust Service and they have done this and ask me to do it many times and it never made any difference.

Is it possible that after the Cumulative Update Preview update was installed it has added something that could help with it?

In any case I would still like to know how I could stop Realtek to keep installing automatically, just in case problem comes back and I want to go back to the High Definition Audio Device.


Also regarding PeterOz comment " Post #11 pic what option do you have (if any) with Microphone array." I am not quite sure what you would like me to change:

Do you mean if I have any other option different that the AMD Audio device to use as Mic Array? If that is the case, no I dont have any other option




Or do you mean change something within the AMS AD Array? Here I dont have anything I can select there is only one format available.



At this point and because the problem is ( im cautious here) 'gone' I cannot do the clean boot check, but I will keep that in mind should it return to see I can isolate when exactly happens.


Cheers!

sorry I forgot the audio recording of this noise that has appeared..... should i be concerned
you cannot hear it very loud but is that low cracking/static sound


Cheers!

Thank you for reopening the topic.

I will do the clean boot tomorrow and let you know if I find any of the processes causing it.

Laptop just sits on the table, no cooling tray or anything. They cleaned the laptop on the one of the visits to the repair center no more than 1 month ago.

Ok I have some results after doing the clean boot :

I followed the steps and disable all the non Microsoft Services on the services tab and all the items on the task manager on the start up tab. I made a call and It was good.

I gradually enabled all the items on the list testing the sound in a call after each one, and call was always good. Even after all of the items were finally enabled.

I rebooted normally after this and called again..... And problem was there once more.

So this made me think that if it is not something on the startup, maybe it was something on the services tab. With all of the non Microsoft services disabled, call is ok but if they are all enable it isnt. So again tested calls gradually enabling the services and I have identified " Waves Audio Services" as the one that when enable seems to make the problem come back.

xrobwx71 said:

Excellent troubleshooting!

I'm assuming you left the Waves Audio Services disabled and it continues to work?

---

@Rustys Thanks for getting us on the right track with the clean boot!

Click to expand...

That is correct. I have not re-enabled it since I finished the process and after another call a few minutes ago. It is still doing ok. Not really planning on doing it ;P , On the contrary how can I make sure I can completely remove Waves ? And also I would like to make sure Realtek doesnt keep auto installing and I can install/uninstall it as I decide.

Cheers!

Hi !

Here is the results file from MiniToolbox

Thanks

Thanks. I am trying to access the folder windowsapps to go and uninstall it but it seems I dont have permission to access it.
I have tried to follow the steps that are mentioned here to change the ownership properties to get access. But it doesnt seem to let me after that.


I have also tried to do it form the command prompt as an admin : takeown /f "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps; /r. It does whatever is supposed to do but when I try to access windowsapp folder after it is done, it still says I have no permission

I am logged in with the local account hat has the administrator permission so I am not sure why I cannot access it.

Any other way I can try?

xrobwx71 said:

Use RevoUninstaller to completely remove Waves Audio. The free one is fine.

Click to expand...

Great going to try it straight away!

Rustys said:

Should be listed under Programs and Features.

Where the list of installed software is located.

Click to expand...

Thats where I first looked but It wasnt on the list.



Anyway I used RevoUninstaller to remove Waves MaxxAudio Pro, the register keys and the remaining associated folders. I restarted and check the system conf and I can still see it there ( still stopped yes but still there) and on the task manager. Should it be gone after running the uninstaller?

Also I wanted to uninstall Realtek Audio . I cannot see it on the control panel programs and features, RevoUninstaller also doest seem to find it either under the uninstall tab or the windows apps tab . How can I get rid of it? I know that it doesnt seem to be the one actually causing the problem but in the past, uninstalling it and going back to the AMD HD Audio device, so i just want to know how it can be done... just in case

All right then I will leave Realtek alone

Ok I diabled all those Dell and restarted . I tried to find anything related to Waves to uninstall but:

I cannot find anything " Waves " on the control panel
If I try with RevoUninstaller it shows no 'wave' items under the uninstaller tab nor the windowsapp tab.
Also under tools Junk files cleaner nothing comes up
Only if I look at the autorun manager I get this:

and this under location: services



It would seem there are still waves related things installed.

Im thinking that , ok if it cannot be uninstalled I will just keep it disabled. And if it gets enabled again well , then I will re do the process.
At least calls keep working fine!!

Thank you guys so much you are awesome! You have done in a few days what Dell customer service has not been able to do ( or didnt want to) in the last three and a half months,

Cheers!!