Conexant SmartAudio HD (CX20722) Driver problems

Hi there,

I've been having some problems over the past few weeks with my Conexant SmartAudio HD (CX20722) in my Dell Inspiron 13 7359.  Generally, my sound works fine after a complete shutdown has occurred.  If I restart my computer after that, no sound comes out of the speakers.  When I open the Dell Audio utility in the taskbar and click the speaker button, it APPEARS to be playing.  There are no error messages whatsoever, but yet no sound comes out.  When I open Windows Volume Mixer and click the speaker levels, it appears that sound is being played, but yet nothing is heard.  There is never any error message.

This problem surfaced when I installed a clean version of Windows 10 Pro in late August.  Since then I have installed Windows 10 twice again with the same problems.  Things I have tried:

1.  Using different Conexant Driver Releases - all drivers yield the same results (tried all 4)

2.  Installing Microsoft's generic HD Audio Driver

3.  Limiting the available memory to 3072 - actually I haven't tried this, and WHY WOULD I?  This is not an acceptable workaround.

4.  Disabling Audio Enhancements - no effect.

5.  SFC /scannow - nothing happened.

6.  Changing default Audio Formats (Sample rates/bit depths)

7.  Connecting Headphones or speakers - no effect.

Again, this problem resembles a common Conexant Audio Driver issue that has been rolling around internet forums since Windows 10 was released, only mine only seems to have problems following Windows Restarts.  I did leave feedback on Windows 10 Feedback Hub regarding this problem, but that tends not to help much.  Does anyone have a practical solution to this?

Thanks for any assistance that can be provided!