Unbalanced sound on vi Hero with Windows 10 and 2.1 speakers.

[gfxonline]

I decided to balance the sound problem. Remove the registry branch "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Nahimic" and reinstall the driver Realtek HD.

Andrij you are a life-saver sir!
I don't know how or why, but your solution did seem to work miracles! I can confirm that your solution works perfectly and restores equal balance to my speakers with ANY Realtek HD Audio driver. I'm now running the latest drivers in the 80xx branch from Realtek and the sound is music to my ears, both figuratively and literally

I have developed a habit to delete that registry key every time before I install new drivers and I haven't run into any more issues.

Thank you so much for your help Andrij, and I hope Realtek or Asus can take note from this issue and modify their drivers accordingly.

Cheers!

[derektm]

I encountered a similar problem with updated drivers. My main test was using youtube in chrome.
Now this is a not an ideal fix but it will correct the balance problem with the correct audio configuration.
If this consistently work, there is likely something wrong with the special effects that needs to be fixed.
Hopefully it works for others.
1. I used Playback devices temporarily configure as another channel output like 7.1 or quad channel. (this is key).
2. Went into the properties of the selected audio device.
3. Go to the enhancements tab and Check Disable all sound effects. (None of them were checked in the first place)
4. Ok all the way out.
5. Set it back to the correct channel/speaker configuration for your setup.
6. Depending on what you may be testing with... you may need to refresh, relaunch or reboot to then check the result properly.

What a BOSS! Worked perfect. Thank you!

[derektm]

I decided to balance the sound problem. Remove the registry branch "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Nahimic" and reinstall the driver Realtek HD.

This works too. Very cool thank you!

[spike914]

I encountered a similar problem with updated drivers. My main test was using youtube in chrome.
Now this is a not an ideal fix but it will correct the balance problem with the correct audio configuration.
If this consistently work, there is likely something wrong with the special effects that needs to be fixed.
Hopefully it works for others.
1. I used Playback devices temporarily configure as another channel output like 7.1 or quad channel. (this is key).
2. Went into the properties of the selected audio device.
3. Go to the enhancements tab and Check Disable all sound effects. (None of them were checked in the first place)
4. Ok all the way out.
5. Set it back to the correct channel/speaker configuration for your setup.
6. Depending on what you may be testing with... you may need to refresh, relaunch or reboot to then check the result properly.

I have a Asus Maximus Formula Vi, and had to reinstall windows . I thought it was just me and i was going crazy that the audio was louder in the left side. I went on a rampage downloading different reltek audio driver but kept getting the same out come. Then i found this thread and it changed my life forever !! Thank You so much!

[rpsabqq]

I decided to balance the sound problem. Remove the registry branch "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Nahimic" and reinstall the driver Realtek HD.

Um..... so i delete Nahimic and reinstall the driver which simply puts back Nihimic and the problem remains. What am i missing?

[gfxonline]

Um..... so i delete Nahimic and reinstall the driver which simply puts back Nihimic and the problem remains. What am i missing?

The original problem (at least for me) was that there were leftovers in the registry from an older driver version. When you actually delete the key you are starting from a blank slate, the new drivers will only install what's needed.
In other words, the fix is to remove old leftovers in the registry before installing a new driver, it could be because the installer doesn't clear out any old keys from the registry, and you are left with possibly unused keys that mess up your settings.
That solution worked for me, and I preferred it to the other proposal because I can still use the sound enhancements as usual.
Of course we all have different HW/SW setup so the same solution may not work for everyone but it's worth trying.
Hope it works for you too

[Stupidest]

Um..... so i delete Nahimic and reinstall the driver which simply puts back Nihimic and the problem remains. What am i missing?

Sorry for reviving a really old thread but I've found a solution to fix this problem that's been bugging me for years now and I hope it would help others too.

I'm using an Asus ROG Maximus VI Formula and I'm also facing this issue where deleting Nahimic and reinstalling the audio drivers from Asus just revived the problem.
What I did:
-first remove the registry branch "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Nahimic" as suggested from another user in this thread
-then download and install the latest Realtek HD Audio drivers from Realtek's website (Specifically version R2.82 for Windows 10) instead of the one from Asus's website.
-At this point your left and right audio should be perfectly balanced, as all things should be. But now you're missing Asus's sound control panel where you have more audio configurations like amplification levels, DTS etc. If you want that just install Asus's audio drivers again and you should be done.
-Now you have balanced left and right audio WITHOUT disabling sound effects AND have Asus's audio control

tldr
1. Remove Nahimic from registry
2. Install Realtek audio drivers from Realtek's website (Specifically version R2.82 for Windows 10)
3. Install Asus audio drivers from Asus's website for Asus audio controls
4. Profit

[RicardoSimoes]

Sorry for reviving a really old thread but I've found a solution to fix this problem that's been bugging me for years now and I hope it would help others too.

I'm using an Asus ROG Maximus VI Formula and I'm also facing this issue where deleting Nahimic and reinstalling the audio drivers from Asus just revived the problem.
What I did:
-first remove the registry branch "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Nahimic" as suggested from another user in this thread
-then download and install the latest Realtek HD Audio drivers from Realtek's website (Specifically version R2.82 for Windows 10) instead of the one from Asus's website.
-At this point your left and right audio should be perfectly balanced, as all things should be. But now you're missing Asus's sound control panel where you have more audio configurations like amplification levels, DTS etc. If you want that just install Asus's audio drivers again and you should be done.
-Now you have balanced left and right audio WITHOUT disabling sound effects AND have Asus's audio control

tldr
1. Remove Nahimic from registry
2. Install Realtek audio drivers from Realtek's website (Specifically version R2.82 for Windows 10)
3. Install Asus audio drivers from Asus's website for Asus audio controls
4. Profit

How this is still happen in 2020?? i'm having this problem and still can fix it!! All because my 5.1 system died and have to switch to 2.1!!!
Even with you method i can get it to work -.-
Did you uninstall realtek drivers first or something?

Thanks!

[Stupidest]

How this is still happen in 2020?? i'm having this problem and still can fix it!! All because my 5.1 system died and have to switch to 2.1!!!
Even with you method i can get it to work -.-
Did you uninstall realtek drivers first or something?

Thanks!

Sorry for the late reply. I literally opened an account here just to post this.

Yes, best to start over from scratch. Uninstall the audio drivers first. Then you remove the registry branch.