Windows can't load NihimicSvc32 but keeps trying anyway every five sec  

I'm hoping someone here can help with my Realtek audio issue. I've been reading and reading but can't figure it out.

I am running Win 10 Pro 1909 on an ASUS ROG Z390-E motherboard with a Realtek audio controller, driver version 6.0.8791.1. I have determined that this driver has no "special files" indicating additional integration.

I noticed this morning that the blue "loading" circle kept appearing every five seconds for a second or two next to my cursor. Using Task Manager I traced this to the "NahimicSvc32.exe" service, which was repeatedly and unsuccessfully trying to load. It kept trying and failing to load every five seconds, causing the reappearing blue circle next to the cursor. I also checked the Event Viewer, which has a long list of "faulting app" instances for "NahimicSvc32.exe."

Within Task Manager I ended the "NahimicService.exe" task (under which the faulting NahiminSvc32.exe task appears) and the problem stopped. But of course with every restart it reappears until I manually end the service again.

Please note that NahmicSvc32.exe appears to load fine when I log in using an administrator account (for security purposes I usually log in as a non-admin user).

So I am perplexed. Why does Realtek keep trying to start Nahimic even though the driver has no integration for Nahimic? Why does the problem only exist when logging in as a non-administrator?

All assistance appreciated!

Howard

ASUS ROG Z390-E came with Sonic Studio III and ASUS's website has 8666 as their latest driver.

You installing 8791 doesn't negate the fact the previous drivers had Sonic Studio (therefore nahimic).

Thanks. I went back to Device Manager and uninstalled the device and then reinstalled it with the 8666 drivers. It still exhibits the same behavior, i.e., unsuccessful attempts to load NahimicSvc32.exe every five seconds (unless signed in as administrator).

Yes, and I have set it to manual and it no longer loads automatically. This cures the issue of repeated unsuccessful attempts to start the service.

I still don't understand why this is only a problem when I am logged in as a user with non-admin privileges. If I log in as administrator NahimicSvc32 loads and works just fine. For example, if I try to run Sonic Studio 3 in non-admin mode it times out says "The current system is not supported or the audio driver has not been properly installed." But Sonic Studio 3 starts up fine when I'm in admin mode.

ASUS 8746 driver for ROG Maximus X Hero specifically said something about user account control.

Thanks. I'll try to find what was said about that driver to see if it clarifies anything,

- - - Updated - - -

Is this what you were thinking of? It appears that the driver has a UAC "verification mechanism." The 8666 driver (2019/06/17) presumably lacks that since it precedes the date of the hotfix (2019/10/03).

Version 6.0.1.8746
2019/12/03
686.47 MBytes

Realtek Audio Driver
Updated User Account Control verification mechanism to match the revised requirements of the kb4524147 hotfix

sandyt said:

ASUS 8746 driver for ROG Maximus X Hero specifically said something about user account control.

the Realtek audio 8746 driver is an HDA FF03 (non-UAD) driver, sandyt (guess you did not use 7zip to check the contents of that 8746 package)

what howardg needs is a UAD driver and 8746 from asus is not it
I'm gonna ask MoKiChU from a different forum since he knows which Realtek uad driver is compatible for ROG Z390-E - or maybe try the following from this post in this forum

Actually, Asus went back and forth on the ROG Maximus X Hero between HDA and UAD drivers. They had an 8507 and 8666 UAD drivers. Then they went back to a 8746 HDA driver and put in the User Account Control verification mechanism in the bug fix listing.

So I suspected that Nahimic couldn't fix the problem fast enough so Asus went back to HDA driver somehow.

I really appreciate your attention to this issue. For the record, the motherboard is the "ROG STRIX Z390-E GAMING." The audio is described as "ROG SupremeFX S1220A 8-Channel High Definition CODEC," and features "Sonic Studio III + Sonic Studio Link" and "Sonic Radar III."

Since building the computer in December 2018 I had been running the original BIOS, ver. 0224. Earlier this month I updated the BIOS to ver. 1302. It was after this update that I seemed to start noticing the issue with the audio drivers, but this might be just a coincidence, not a cause.

As stated earlier in the thread I updated the audio driver to ver. 8791, but then rolled back to ver. 8666 on sandyt's advice. I now have the 8666 audio driver. Whether this is a UAD driver I do not know, but it is the latest audio driver listed for this motherboard on the ASUS support site. With this driver NahimicSvc32.exe will not properly load while logged in as a standard user, but will do so when logged in as an administrator. I have addressed this problem by disabling the loading of Nahimic services using the Autoruns app.

At this juncture, I assume there are no audio drivers available that allow Nahimic services to run when logging in as a standard user.