m16 R2, Realtek sound card driver issue causes audio playback glitches

In early December 2024, I purchased an Alienware m16 R2 laptop, U7, RTX4060, and Windows 11 Home pre-installed. After a few days of use, I noticed strange audio issues with the following symptoms:

1. The audio can be played normally when the machine is turned on, but there is no sound when it is played again about 1 minute after the pause, both when the headphones are plugged in and the speaker is used.

2. In the case of audio playback, there is a certain probability that there will be no sound when switching outputs (headphones, speakers, HDMI audio).

In the above two cases, trying to adjust the mixing or testing the speaker will prompt the device occupancy, with Win11's built-in player Media Player will show that the audio device cannot be found, and switching the output will prompt a 0x88890023 error, which means that the audio file cannot be opened, and it uses unsupported encoding settings.

TroubleShooting:

Reinstall the operating system, I have tried both Home and Pro versions of Windows 11, and the problem is still the same after updating the driver through SupportAssist, after ruling out hardware problems, operating system problems, update patch problems, AWCC, graphics card driver problems, and finally the problem falls on the graphics card driver, because I used SupportAssist to update the latest driver, the Realtek sound card driver version is 6.0.9738.1, A03, When I downgraded to 6.0.9605.1, A00 legacy voice card driver. The problem was solved.

Conclusion: Realtek 6.0.9738.1, A03 version has a problem with the sound card driver which will cause the above problems to occur. After repeated reinstallation of the system, it was determined that the problem was not accidental. I hope that DELL will check with the manufacturer as soon as possible to fix the problem of this version of the driver.