Audio problem with latest 8.3 alpha on DisplayLink
 

Using a Thinkpad USB 3.0 dock with the latest DisplayLink 8.3 alpha installed on WIndows 10 (Creator Update), but the audio output is just noise. No sound other than noise is putting out. What can I do?

See the log attached.

Hello and thank you for the logs.

You are using the 8.3 Alpha video driver. However you are still running the same audio driver as before on 8.2, as it wasn't changed or re-signed yet. You can see from device manager that the audio being ran is 8.2.1638.0.

Would you please install back 8.2 M2 and confirm the issue disappears?

Kind regards,
Alban

Hi Alban,

I'm sorry, I haven't got a chance to reinstall the 8.2 driver as I have to solve a significant slow down of computer for no reason recently. May I ask, do you mean the 8.3 Alpha video driver doesn't come with a compatible Audio driver in the package? I would prefer to use the 8.3 Alpha version as it has the fix to night-light mode.

Thanks!

Hello,

I am saying we have not changed the audio driver.

I'm asking if you could check again with 8.2 to see if the issue disappears.
If so, then there is a regression. If it stays an issue, then the fact that it started when you installed 8.3 is a coincidence.
You can then re-install 8.3 Alpha to benefit from the colour correction feature.

Kind regards,
Alban

I have used the DisplayLink Cleaner to uninstalled the 8.3 Alpha driver, restarted and then installed the 8.2 M3 driver downloaded on the DisplayLink website. Now, the audio seems working fine by playing a few YouTube videos online.

I noticed that the Audio driver is actually signed by Microsoft with version number 10.0.15063.447. Is this normal? What should I do next?

Thank you for your prompt response!

Hello,
The audio driver you are using is the brand new Windows inbox one.
Which we haven't yet switched to because it causes major *video* performance impact on that version. We have worked with Microsoft on making an inbox driver we can use, to lighten our driver even more.
We intend to switch to the inbox audio driver when it is fixed. It's supposed to be fixed recently but we haven't yet verified it so this would be in our v8.4.

Could you please force the DisplayLink audio driver by:

1. Go to Device Manager
2. Edit the properties of the audio device
3. Select Update driver
4. Then select Browse my computer
5. Let me pick...
6. Have Disk...
7. Navigate to C:\Program Files\DisplayLink Core Software\Drivers
8. Select dlusbaudio.inf
9. It will show "DisplayLink USB Audio Adapter"
10. Click on Next
11. It shows "installing drivers..."
12. Confirm the driver version is now DisplayLink 8.2...

Kind regards,
Alban

Thank you for your response. I am going through the steps you provided, but once I selected the dlusbaudio.inf driver, there was an error saying that "The folder you specified doesn't contain a compatible software driver for your device. If the folder contains a driver, make sure it is designed to work with Windows for x64-based system." Then it stopped from installing the driver.

I am using a Windows Pro x64 OS, it looks strange to me.

BTW, I also experienced a White Screen of Death today after awakening my computer from sleep. I am not sure if this is related to the Displaylink driver, as it only provided a QR code for the detailed error message which I don't know how to find out the details of the error. This is the first time I saw this White screen error, before it was always Blue Screen of Death if happened.

Surprising. I think there is a tickbox in the previous screen which says "only display compatible". I'm surprised though... I mean it's almost the same driver, written by the same people :D

If you collect the logs now, I would get information about the crash. Unlikely to be us as you need something low level to do crashes like that, and we stopped having low level (=kernel) driver, but I can let you know what crashed. If there is a full memory dump, it may be too big to upload here and it might need you to put it in the cloud file storage of your choice for me to get it.

Kind regards,
Alban

Thank you for offering the chance to check the dump files. I may upload the file if it happens again. The computer has been restarted for a few times after the last crash.

Regarding to the driver, the tickbox doesn't help--whether I select it or not. Maybe I should wait for the next release for this issue to be completely fixed.

At this stage, I believe we have used enough of your time.
Thank you for the attempts.
Doing nothing is good: we are not changing the audio driver with 8.3 and, as we plan to migrate to the inbox driver, it is compatible.

Should you get an issue later, we can re-discuss it.

Kind regards,
Alban