DDU completes successfully, but NVIDIA HD Audio device keeps coming back after every clean install

[davidsiebert]

Hi everyone, I'm David and I'm currently using DDU v18.1.4.5 on Windows 11 Pro 24H2 with an RTX 4080. I've run into a strange issue that I haven't been able to solve after several days of testing. My goal was to completely remove every NVIDIA component because I was troubleshooting intermittent DPC latency spikes that cause short audio crackles while gaming and occasionally during Discord calls. I followed the recommended procedure by disconnecting the internet, booting into Safe Mode, using "Clean and Restart," and then installing only the Display Driver and PhysX without the NVIDIA App or HD Audio component. Everything appears to install correctly, but after one or two normal reboots, NVIDIA High Definition Audio automatically reappears in Device Manager even though I never selected it during installation. At the same time, Windows starts reporting a second inactive audio endpoint, LatencyMon shows occasional spikes from HDAudBus.sys, and the audio crackling eventually returns. I even tried deleting the related driver package with pnputil, disabled automatic driver updates through Group Policy, and confirmed Windows Update wasn't downloading anything during the process, yet the device still comes back after a restart. I'm beginning to wonder if Windows is restoring the driver from the Driver Store or detecting it directly from the GPU firmware. Has anyone dealt with this before, or is there another step I'm missing to prevent the NVIDIA HD Audio device from being automatically reinstalled after using DDU?

[Wagnard]

Hi everyone, I'm David and I'm currently using DDU v18.1.4.5 on Windows 11 Pro 24H2 with an RTX 4080. I've run into a strange issue that I haven't been able to solve after several days of testing. My goal was to completely remove every NVIDIA component because I was troubleshooting intermittent DPC latency spikes that cause short audio crackles while gaming and occasionally during Discord calls. I followed the recommended procedure by disconnecting the internet, booting into Safe Mode, using "Clean and Restart," and then installing only the Display Driver and PhysX without the NVIDIA App or HD Audio component. Everything appears to install correctly, but after one or two normal reboots, NVIDIA High Definition Audio automatically reappears in Device Manager even though I never selected it during installation. At the same time, Windows starts reporting a second inactive audio endpoint, LatencyMon shows occasional spikes from HDAudBus.sys, and the audio crackling eventually returns. I even tried deleting the related driver package with pnputil, disabled automatic driver updates through Group Policy, and confirmed Windows Update wasn't downloading anything during the process, yet the device still comes back after a restart. I'm beginning to wonder if Windows is restoring the driver from the Driver Store or detecting it directly from the GPU firmware. Has anyone dealt with this before, or is there another step I'm missing to prevent the NVIDIA HD Audio device from being automatically reinstalled after using DDU?

Hi,
Probably Windows update is re-installing it.
Here is a way to prevent that.
Do DDU again and ensure that in the DDU option, you have the option (the last one) that say 'prevent downloads of driver from windows update' ticked. When you are back in windows ( with your driver installed while still not having the Nvidia audio driver installed), you can use WTools to hide this specific audio driver viewtopic.php?t=5602

It located under the 'Tools' tab. look for 'Manage hidden Updates' button.

[saharaproperly]

The reason it appears again is usually not because the GPU "spontaneously releases firmware drivers," but because Windows is restoring drivers from Windows Update or Windows' own driver update system. The answer is to prevent Windows Update from installing drivers and then hide the NVIDIA HD Audio driver separately after the system is clean.