HP EliteBook 840 G3 no longer works correctly with HP Audio Drivers!

So it worked for a month anyway!

Thank you again for your advice; however it seems eminently clear, from my myriad experiments over the previous months that it is ABSOLUTELY not clear exactly which driver/s is/are the culprit/s.

My last "real" job was as an in-house consultant at huge US defense contractor General Dynamics to solve difficult problems that others could not ... and I am generally pretty good at problem-solving (no one is close to perfect, the Tao being what it is). In my experienced assessment it seems reasonable to guess that I may have missed deleting one of the Sound and Audio Drivers last time .. or it got reinstalled in a Windows Update last week.

Anyway I just repeated deleting ALL the hidden and unhidden drivers again, ran

sfc /scannow

dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

... to be sure the system was clean and reinstalled the latest Conexant ISST Dec. 3, 2020 HP Audio Driver sp111438 (file still stored but unemployed in my PC) and expect the likelihood of doing this "routine maintenance" procedure again in another month.

Therefore, Problem NOT Solved ... but not so bad.

We shall see ....

Last 2 weeks I had 3 "Bang & Olufsen stopped working" error messages, and 3x deleted all the audio drivers ... only to have Windows reinstall and update them to fail again. So since this HP Elitebook 840 G3 model is no longer supported and the HP Support Assistant will alert me to any special driver, security and BIOS updates. which I can also check for myself ... I finally used wushowhide and hid ALL the HP updates for everything, all their drivers.

Will wait to see if this continues to work, but so far, so good ....

??

Thank you .... but what you wrote is VERY unclear to me. Please be a LOT more specific!!

What I have done is put ALL HP Updates coming via Windows Update (i.e., NOT those coming directly from HP via HP Support Assistant) on a list only affecting Windows Update NOT to update via Windows Update). This is practical because HP is no longer supporting this model and updating anything (except BIOS which would come via HP Support Assistant anyway!) is very unlikely.

Perhaps you are not aware of HP Support Assistant .... or of HP's excellent support systems.

Please post EXACTLY what you mean and importantly. WHAT you think is incorrect, harmful, stupidly destructive and wrong with my latest current solution which seems to be working so far. Not a challenge, I just want specific DETAILED clarity.

Thank you

OK. Of course I several times looked at and undestood the tutorials ... and my above onsfusion was only because what I did accomplished those functions of the tutorials that I wish:

"a. The updating of a driver for a specific item of hardware use the first tutorial"

I prevented this for Windows Updating with wzshowhide for ALL HP updates attempted by Windows Update for the reasons I posted above: I do not want ANY Windows Updates for any HP items ...period! I can get any I need directly from HP via HP Support Assistant which constantly and automatically advises me online. To be clear: as conveyed to me via its wonderful HP Support Assistant, HP no longer wants to update the 2020 Audio Driver nor for ANY hardware, but every year or so urges a new BIOS Update -- and ONLY through HP not,Windows.



"b. The download and installation of drivers associated with Windows Update use the 2nd tutorial"

I prevented this for Windows Updating with wzshowhide for ALL HP updates attempted by Windows Update for the reasons I posted above: I do not want ANY Windows Updates for any HP items ...period! I can get any I need directly from HP via HP Support Assistant which constantly and automatically advises me online. To be clear: as conveyed to me via its wonderful HP Support Assistant, HP no longer wants to update the 2020 Audio Driver nor for ANY hardware, but every year or so urges a new BIOS Update -- and ONLY through HP not,Windows.


So we are both very clear on this ... which is why I was confused.

Thanks again for clarifying.