The maker should have notes about the setting and what driver to use.
Here I moved all our offices to W10. It's been grand and as fast or faster than W7. YMMV.
I recently downgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 7 on a 4 year old Compaq CQ58 - 265EV. The laptop was running too slow with the Windows 10 upgrade and I thought a factory reset and Windows downgrade would help with the problem.
Unfortunately a problem developed after the downgrade. When I startup the laptop I get a icon in the bottom right hand corner of the screen say "downloading device software" and after a bit it says something to the effect of "software not installed properly". At this point the laptop has no sound. Volumes are turned on and not muted. If I left click the speaker icon in the tray at the bottom right of the screen and then right click on the icon at the top of the popup it says "digital audio (s/pdif) (2 - high definition audio device". (Note: The icon is different than the speaker that I normally see at the top of the popup)
I have found two work arounds but would like to solve the issue if possible.
The first work around is going into device manager and clicking on "Sound, Gaming and Video Controllers" and deleting the two sub categories under which are 1) "AMD High Definition Audio Device" (NOTE: which has a yellow triangle with a exclamation mark in front of it - not sure why?) and 2) "High definition Audio Device" and then rebooting the laptop. After the reboot the speakers work. Now if I right click the speaker icon in the bottom right tray there is a picture of a speaker that when hovering the mouse over says "Speakers: High Definition Audio Device". Although the speakers now work it shows the same as above in the device manager.
The second work around is to simply re-start the laptop after the initial startup and the speakers will work. When I check the Device Manager I have the same two sub categories as above with the same yellow yield sign in the first line.
I have done extensive searching online and it seems a number of people have this issue but they solve it changing the BIOS which I can't seem to find online how to do. My current BIOS run is F.29 and online it says it should be downgraded to F.27.
My laptop came with Windows 8 before the Windows 10 upgrade and after the factory reset I had Windows 7 installed.(I prefer Windows 7) Could that be the issue? I tried change the BIOS using the HP/COMPAQ online help but when it came to the part of which BIOS to install/re-install I only had a option for Windows 8 and 8.1.
I am somewhat of a neophyte when it comes to computer issues and I had an "expert" do the factory reset and install Windows 7 but he can't figure out why my sound isn't working properly so that is why I am trying to figure it out. I am not sure it is a BIOS issue or what the problem is. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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