So, while I’ve been waiting for my V, I grabbed a Surface Pro 4 (i5) to experience Windows 10 (Macbook Pro person here) and the 2-in-1 format. Overall, I’ve loved the experience except at least once a week the Windows sound drivers seem to go missing in action. I see the little speaker icon on the task bar with an “X” and it indicates the sound service/device is not active… .for no reason. A reboot fixes. This kind of nonsense is why I left Windows long ago. So, the question for Eve is what sound hardware and drivers does it come with and what should I expect of reliability? While there’s alot to bash Apple for, one thing is that the base O/S, drivers, etc, have been rock solid for years. Windows 10 seems better than XP+ but MS clearly hasn’t gotten to the OSX level of stability still.
Agreed on annoying I find that happens in win 7 possibly due to sleep mode. Why? I don’t know. I’m not sure what Eve can do if it’s a driver developed by Intel or TI + integration with Microsoft but hey, let’s see!
That’s because Windows 10 will work on all kinds of different devices (literally thousands at least), where as MacOS is only designed to work on very specific hardware defined by Apple. The hardware is built around the OS, the OS is built around the hardware, which makes having good drivers very easy. I’d rather the openness of Microsoft/linux and being able to run it on whatever I want, than being restricted to very specific hardware.
As far as fixing the sound driver problem, have you tried completely uninstalling the driver and rebooting? That may fix it for good, and it's easy to try.
i) Right click on the start menu (or press Win+X)
ii) Click on the “Device Manager” option
iii) Click to expand the “Sound, video and game controllers” option
iv) Find the driver for your speaker/headphone/soundcard
- If you are unsure, you should be able to uninstall anything that seems audio related without any problems
v) Right click and select “Uninstall device” on the audio driver
- If a box appears with a checkbox that says “Delete the driver software for this device”, be sure that is checked
vi) Restart the computer after the driver has been uninstalled
If the driver is not automatically reinstalled, you should be able to Google and find the driver from Microsoft’s website and install it again.
Hope this helps!
I think it goes without saying, but make sure that you have a backup of the driver before doing this
The V comes with Intel HD Audio, which to my knowledge is part of Intel’s Sunrise Point platform controller hub (PCH). This will be the case for almost all devices using an Intel 7th generation Core CPU, unless the manufacturer added additional audio hardware. Drivers for this are the certified Intel drivers provided through Windows Update.
Any audio issues reported during our prototype testing phase have been resolved, and we don’t expect any stability- or other issues with the audio in our production devices.
Funnily, one of the recurring issues I’ve seen in the past two years of servicing MacBooks, is one where the volume icon in the menu bar is greyed out and audio no longer works 
Considering it’s an audio driver and not a network/keyboard/mouse/display driver, a backup really isn’t necessary. Downloading a audio driver from Microsoft is easy enough, if for some reason it’s not automatically downloaded upon restart.
I have the exact same problem on my Dell Inspiron 5720 laptop, and usually it fixes itself after Windows “warms up” a bit. I’m not sure of the cause of the issue, as it started after Spring Creators update.
Windows Explorer freezes up on me often, too, to where I think these are both related.
In short, wait a couple of minutes and I think it should fix itself. If not, maybe it’s a Surface-specific issue?
I also have a specific question: I’ve discovered the “Dolby Audio” Setting on my current business device, and I really love what Dolby could put out of this 3.5mm port! Will the V support Dolby Audio? Or is there any chance to get it someday as an Update?
Maybe someone has mentioned the answer in one of all those reviews from today, but I haven’t found that yet Thanks for helping!