Ongoing 3.5mm Jack Audio Issue on Dell Precision 3490 and OptiPlex 5000 – Looking for Additional Insight

We're currently troubleshooting a persistent issue across several Dell systems, particularly the Precision 3490 laptops and OptiPlex 5000 desktops, where the 3.5mm headphone jack doesn’t work properly. The problem appears on both Windows 10 and 11 and happens even on freshly imaged systems.

What we've seen:

• Realtek driver versions (such as 6.0.9706.3 to 6.0.9835.x) fail to trigger jack detection

• Internal speakers and USB audio work fine, but 3.5mm output is ignored

• Realtek Audio Service and Waves MaxxAudio are either not running or missing

• Uninstalling Realtek and allowing Windows to use the generic High Definition Audio driver resolves the issue, making the jack work reliably

Our current workaround:

1. Update the system using Windows and Realtek updates

2. Reboot

3. Uninstall Realtek Audio via Device Manager

4. Reboot again – Windows falls back to the generic audio driver

5. Audio jack works as expected

This workaround has worked across multiple devices on our end. We've also come across other users reporting the same behavior and using similar steps to restore functionality.

Looking for:

• Confirmation from others experiencing this on Precision or OptiPlex models

• Any known Dell-side updates or official fixes

• Driver versions that do not exhibit this issue

• Any long-term solutions that do not involve removing Realtek completely

This seems to be hardware-specific to newer Dell models and not directly tied to the OS. Any insight or suggestions are appreciated.