Further documentation that I made and sent along with a help ticket that I opened with Vive support. While unfortunately after the following email copy all they did was try and send me back to uninstalling Vive Console and Steam VR, I have at least identified a possible work around. (If you are so incline to read the entire email chain, it is attached)
Jerson,
At the moment I was able to get the velcro stickers to reattach to the HMD. My recommendation (as I've had this issue with the original HTC vive) is to sell a pack of replacements..
Back to the topic of the ticket.
The movie was recorded prior to me attempting the Void Wireless Headset and it had at the point of the recording never been connected to the laptop in use. It was something I thought might be an interesting test with nothing to lose once I started to feel this was not hardware related. The added benefit would be that if I could not resolve the audio from the included HMD speakers, I could remove them, cap the head strap and use the Void in its place. Not ideal, but workable.
For the other question you asked about is the issue replicated when the Wireless headset is no longer attached to the computer. This is unfortunately a complex answer so I apologize ahead of time. On initial testing if I unplugged the wireless headset, and left everything in place for the Vive it would maintain until a reboot. After reboot we went back to the original issue of no audio until the wireless headset was plugged for enough time for the computer to make connection to the headset and use it. After that I could shut it down and remove the USB dongle and everything was Hunky Dory with the Vive. After going through these motions and trying to see if anything else could be changed (so I don't have to carry the wireless headset around, I was trying to find out if I just needed the wireless dongle to trip the fix or if i needed the full package) the workaround seemed to have stuck and no longer needed the headset. (Note the diagnostic report I sent in, is from the computer at this state and not the state of the video)
One Note that I should make prior to the next part since you were able to view the video. Any time I mention that I can hear audio from the Vive HMD, the visual indications from the laptop monitor also show audio being sent to the HMD as well. I think this is important as it supports my driver interaction theory.
In a more enumerated way in stages of testing:
1) Original state of no audio from HMD (At this stage, NVIDIA Audio Drivers had already been removed and numerous restart attempts including full OS reinstall and software/driver reinstalls were conducted. This is where I initiated the help ticket)
2) Tested adding Void Wireless Headset to the mix
* Result: After the computer thinking for some time, audio is now coming through the Vive HMD when it is selected in windows as the device for audio output, audio can now also be mirrored using steam.
3) Tested removing the wireless headset while the computer was still on and playing audio through the Vive HMD
*Result: Audio is maintained both in HMD and through mirroring to computer speakers
4) Tested a reboot to see if the fix would stick
*Result: The audio fix did not stick and returned to the original issued state of no audio through HMD.
5) Repeated steps from 2 above
*Result: The same as before, after plugging in the headset and the computer taking an awfully long time to figure out what was just connected and bringing the drivers for the Void Wireless headset online and switching to that device. A switch back to the HTC Vive had audio and the mirroring worked again as well.
6) I figured I had a workaround that at least worked, and I got interested to see if everything would work with the NVIDIA Audio Drivers reinstalled, so I reinstalled those drivers with a fresh install of the entire NVIDIA driver bundle.
*Result: Audio was maintained as per the fixed procedure in 5 above
7) I shut the system down completely and restarted as I wanted to see if my fix used in 5 and 2 above would still work with the NVIDIA drivers installed after a reboot.
*Result: I didn't need to go through my workaround after a reboot now, the HMD Audio was maintained as available
😎 Additional sub testing was done after the findings from 7 were noticed.
A) Tested if I unplugged all components involving the vive and plugged back in would audio still work?: Result: Yes
B) Tested if while everything is plugged in but the power button on the vive link box would audio still work? Result: Yes
C) Tested if all Vive hardware is unplugged from computer, and computer is shut down completely, turned back on, and hardware is then reconnected does audio still work? Result: Yes
Possible sub tests to conduct:
A) Does this still work if the Vive and Steam VR applications are uninstalled, then reinstalled. My theory is this would cause us to return to the initial state of no audio.
I hope this is helpful.
Best,
Daniel Coelho
Gmail - Re_ Vive Pro 2 - No Audio.pdf