[Solved] Headphone Jack Dies After Uninstalling Clevo Control Center?

[ClevoRob]

I have a Clevo P650SE that I bought from PCS back in 2015. I would like to remove the Clevo Control Center application as I consider it to be worthless. It consumes systems resources and frequently changes my keyboard brightness on startup, which is something I find to be an annoyance.

I have tried many times before to remove this software but each time I uninstall it, the headphone jack stops working after a couple of reboots. In the past I have made completely fresh installations of Windows, but even that doesn't allow the headphone jack to function until I reluctantly reinstall the Clevo Control Center application.

I researched this problem and found several people with the same issue as me on various forums. However, there were also other several people running their P650's without Clevo Control Center and they were able to use their headphone jacks no problem at all. So there seems to be a spilt of people who encounter this issue.

One other thing I tried was to install the same version of the Realtek HD Audio Driver that the folks who weren't experiencing this problem happened to be using, but that did not solve anything. I also tried keeping Clevo Control Center installed and just disabling the program from startup, but that too caused the headphone jack to stop working.

 

[ubuysa]

I don't work for PCS but I would have expected that officially at least, Control Centre is required. Are the other P650 users also running the P650SE model? IDK but it's possible that there is a subtle difference between the SE and other variants of that model? It may well be that Control Center is required software on that model/variant....

 

[ClevoRob]

I don't work for PCS but I would have expected that officially at least, Control Centre is required. Are the other P650 users also running the P650SE model? IDK but it's possible that there is a subtle difference between the SE and other variants of that model? It may well be that Control Center is required software on that model/variant....

Thank you for the response. Yes, well 2 of the people I spoke to were using the same SE variant like mine. The letters at the end of the model name simply refer to the GPU, so I don't think that would make a difference. (SA: GTX 965M, SE: GTX 970M, SG: GTX 980M)

 

[ClevoRob]

I forgot to mention that there are 2 audio jacks on the P650SE. One is the standard headphone jack and the other is a S-PDIF. When I uninstall Clevo Control Center, the S-PDIF jack remains functional, which is the same for other people who have this issue. However, this cannot be considered a solution because the audio quality from the S-PDIF jack is very flat by comparison, so it isn't suitable for gaming or listening to music.

 

[ubuysa]

I forgot to mention that there are 2 audio jacks on the P650SE. One is the standard headphone jack and the other is a S-PDIF. When I uninstall Clevo Control Center, the S-PDIF jack remains functional, which is the same for other people who have this issue. However, this cannot be considered a solution because the audio quality from the S-PDIF jack is very flat by comparison, so it isn't suitable for gaming or listening to music.

I think your best option then is to phone PCS and ask their advice.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Have you made sure you’re on the latest version of control center? The issues you’re having would suggest an incompatible version.

 

[ClevoRob]

Have you made sure you’re on the latest version of control center? The issues you’re having would suggest an incompatible version.

I'm using the latest version of Control Center that I downloaded directly from the Clevo website. But the problem is that the headphone jack doesn't work after uninstalling CCC, so the version should make no difference.

The point is that it seems the headphone jack is dependent on CCC being installed in order to operate, but I know that is not the case for everyone because I have heard from other users who do NOT have CCC present on their systems, and they are able to use the headphone jack normally without it.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I'm using the latest version of Control Center that I downloaded directly from the Clevo website. But the problem is that the headphone jack doesn't work after uninstalling CCC, so the version should make no difference.

The point is that it seems the headphone jack is dependent on CCC being installed in order to operate, but I know that is not the case for everyone because I have heard from other users who do NOT have CCC present on their systems, and they are able to use the headphone jack normally without it.

Yes, I realise that, what I was saying is that the issues you're describing as the reason you want to uninstall CCC would point to an incompatible version.

CCC hooks into all drivers and the device isn't configured properly without it.

I'd be surprised if there weren't more things that won't work without it installed, as I said it's a system driver.

 

[ClevoRob]

Yes, I realise that, what I was saying is that the issues you're describing as the reason you want to uninstall CCC would point to an incompatible version.

CCC hooks into all drivers and the device isn't configured properly without it.

I'd be surprised if there weren't more things that won't work without it installed, as I said it's a system driver.

Ah, my bad. I misunderstood.

Well the main problem I have with CCC is that I just consider it to be bloatware. I don't need it installed or lengthening my startup time. I get what you're saying about it being important, but I have tried running my P650SE a few times without it (after new installations of Windows) and I never encountered any problems, except obviously the headphone jack not working. The only other difference was the absence of the overlays in the upper-right corner when using the Fn keys, but that is a good thing IMO.

Anyway, I would still like to remove this software. There are plenty of others over at NotebookReview who agree CCC is unnecessary. I spoke to a couple of users who were able to remove it without loosing operation of their headphone jack, but they were puzzled when I asked about this problem. Just seems random that for some folks, removing this software causes the headphone jack to stop working after a couple of reboots.

 

[ubuysa]

This is going to sound a bit drastic, but you might try a reinstall of Windows and just not install CCC at all. It's not impossible that removing it has removed a driver filter or something that's stopping your headphone jack from working.

If you take a disk image of your system now you can always restore it if a reinstall sans CCC doesn't help.....

 

[ClevoRob]

This is going to sound a bit drastic, but you might try a reinstall of Windows and just not install CCC at all. It's not impossible that removing it has removed a driver filter or something that's stopping your headphone jack from working.

If you take a disk image of your system now you can always restore it if a reinstall sans CCC doesn't help.....

I tried that a few times already, but it didn't help. That's what makes the problem so confusing. I spoke to someone who also reinstalled Windows and his headphone jack remained functional afterwards, without needing to reinstall CCC again. I had done a complete wipe of the entire drive (all partitions) and made an entirely fresh installation of Windows.

 

[Scott]

Sounds very strange, something I would need to see to diagnose though.

Fresh Install - Install Chipset Drivers - Install Realtek Audio Drivers

That should have the Audio Jack working just fine. The fact that it takes a few reboots for it to stop working, in itself, is very strange.

 

[ClevoRob]

Sounds very strange, something I would need to see to diagnose though.

Fresh Install - Install Chipset Drivers - Install Realtek Audio Drivers

That should have the Audio Jack working just fine. The fact that it takes a few reboots for it to stop working, in itself, is very strange.

Yes, it is certainly unusual. Well it has been quite a few months since I last tried to remove CCC, so I decided to have another shot.

So this time I uninstalled CCC and immediately rebooted. After the reboot the headphone jack was still working fine. I rebooted another few times. On the third reboot the headphone jack stopped working. Bizarrely, after rebooting for a fourth time, the headphone jack resumed functioning as normal which is something I cannot understand for the life of me!

Anyway, I have done some further testing and it seems that for the moment, the headphone jack is now functioning correctly after each reboot. The problem is occurring after I put the laptop into sleep mode by either pressing the power button or closing the lid. When I come back and resume my session, the headphone jack has stopped working.

I have tested this several times and on each occasion, the headphone jack only becomes non-operative after resuming from sleep mode. Of course, when I had Clevo Control Center installed the laptop was able to resume from sleep without any problems with the audio jack.

Also, I went and installed the latest Chipset Driver from the Clevo site. But this has not made a difference.

 

[Scott]

Progress at least.

Could you switch off fast boot. Shutdown the laptop then re-boot. See what happens there.

 

[Scott]

Oh, disable Hybrid sleep mode as well.

 

[ClevoRob]

Good news! I found a solution online after years of reluctantly keeping Clevo Control Center installed to avoid this problem. I was only able to find this solution after realising it was resuming from sleep mode that caused the headphone jack to stop working. From there I was able to search and find further discussions related to the problem online. The website where I find the answer was on the Ubuntu Launchpad group.

Comment #19 : Bug #1313904 : Bugs : alsa-driver package : Ubuntu

Hi Marco, I downloaded the Hotkey app from Clevo and InitHeadphone.exe is still present. All it does is calling the function InitHeadphone from hp.dll. If you don't like the Hotkey app, I guess you can also fix the problem (on windows!) by saving hp.dll, uninstalling the Hotkey app and then...

bugs.launchpad.net

It seems that when installed, the Clevo Control Center directory contains a file called InitHeadphone.exe. When the system resumes from sleep mode, CCC runs InitHeadphone.exe to reactivate the headphone jack.

The solution to prevent the headphone jack from 'falling asleep' without CCC being installed is to copy InitHeadphone.exe and hp.dll from the CCC directory to a different folder. Uninstall Clevo Control Center and reboot. Then create a new task in Task Scheduler with the trigger 'On workstation unlock of any user' and set the action to run InitHeadphone.exe from the new folder. In the conditions tab, uncheck 'Start only if the computer is on AC power'.

Now the headphone jack works perfectly without any hassle, and I can happily keep Clevo Control Center uninstalled! ☺

 

[SpyderTracks]

Good news! I found a solution online after years of reluctantly keeping Clevo Control Center installed to avoid this problem. I was only able to find this solution after realising it was resuming from sleep mode that caused the headphone jack to stop working. From there I was able to search and find further discussions related to the problem online. The website where I find the answer was on the Ubuntu Launchpad group.

Comment #19 : Bug #1313904 : Bugs : alsa-driver package : Ubuntu

Hi Marco, I downloaded the Hotkey app from Clevo and InitHeadphone.exe is still present. All it does is calling the function InitHeadphone from hp.dll. If you don't like the Hotkey app, I guess you can also fix the problem (on windows!) by saving hp.dll, uninstalling the Hotkey app and then...

bugs.launchpad.net

It seems that when installed, the Clevo Control Center directory contains a file called InitHeadphone.exe. When the system resumes from sleep mode, CCC runs InitHeadphone.exe to reactivate the headphone jack.

The solution to prevent the headphone jack from 'falling asleep' without CCC being installed is to copy InitHeadphone.exe and hp.dll from the CCC directory to a different folder. Uninstall Clevo Control Center and reboot. Then create a new task in Task Scheduler with the trigger 'On workstation unlock of any user' and set the action to run InitHeadphone.exe from the new folder. In the conditions tab, uncheck 'Start only if the computer is on AC power'.

Now the headphone jack works perfectly without any hassle, and I can happily keep Clevo Control Center uninstalled! ☺

Well done! Very good solution and thanks for sharing!

 

[ubuysa]

Well done! Very good solution and thanks for sharing!

Well done from me to. That makes perfect sense, though technically you only have CCC partially uninstalled now. [emoji16]

Sent using Tapatalk

 

[ClevoRob]

Well done from me to. That makes perfect sense, though technically you only have CCC partially uninstalled now. [emoji16]

Sent using Tapatalk

Well the 2 files combined only take up 1.95MB, so it is considerably smaller than before; and of course it has zero impact on system resources. Furthermore, I don't have issues with my screen and keyboard brightness randomly changing on startup, which is something that really bothered me about Clevo Control Center. So I'm happy I don't have to deal with it anymore!

Kind of ironic I found a solution to this after almost 4 years with the laptop, just as I'm thinking about upgrading to something else. I'm hoping to upgrade to a new laptop at some point in the near future, maybe one with the GTX 1070 since the RTX laptops are still expensive.

 

[Oussebon]

Are the older laptops really that much cheaper than the newer ones?

An RTX 2070 laptop is probably more than a 1070, but they're not really the same tier