This problem is pervasive and annoying. These steps below are the fix. When we did this we made sure to uninstall each driver when prompted. We tried everything beyond this, and this was the only real fix. Time will tell if the issue comes back, however on the suspect systems we disabled non-critical Lenovo Vantage updates.
The steps below will uninstall the proprietary Audio drivers and revert back to Microsoft Inbox Audio driver.
1. Start Windows and logon with an administrator account.
2. Right-click Windows logo on taskbar.
3. Select Device Manager.
4. Select 'Software components' category.
5. Uninstall each of the following devices.
- Right-click the target device and select 'Uninstall device'
- Check 'Delete the driver software for this device' and click 'Uninstall'
a. Dolby Fusion SWC Device
b. DolbyAPO Software Device (HSA)
c. DolbyAPO SWC Device
d. Realtek Audio Effects Component
e. Realtek Audio Universal Service
f. Realtek Hardware Support Application
6. Select 'Sound, video and game controllers' category.
7. Double-click 'Realtek(R) Audio'.
8. In Details tab, select 'Extended Infs' in the dropdown.
9. Make sure to take note of the listed INFs.
10. Uninstall 'Realtek(R) Audio'.
11. Without refreshing the Device Manager or rebooting, open Command Prompt as Admin
and uninstall each extended INF listed in step #9.
Example: pnputil /delete-driver oemXX.INF /uninstall /force
12. Proceed with uninstalling these devices.
a. Intel(R) Smart Sound Technology for Digital Microphones (including Extended INFs)
b. Intel(R) Smart Sound Technology for Bluetooth Audio
13. Select 'System devices' category.
14. Uninstall the following devices in the same order.
a. Intel(R) Smart Sound Technology Detection Verification
b. Intel(R) Smart Sound Technology OED (including Extended INFs)
c. Intel(R) Smart Sound Technology BUS
15. Reboot system.
After reboot you can download the previous version of the Realtek drivers here: https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles/nzaa103w.exe