Realtek Audio has completely disappeared

[Sweet95162]

My computer crashed and when I started it again, Realtek audio would not show up in sound settings, was not running in task manager, would not show in control panel, would not show in device manager. When I installed the latest driver in an attempt to fix it, nothing happened and now I can't find it anywhere. I have tried googling extensively but all the solutions I find are about how to fix it when it is still there. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Cycloid Torus]

Sometimes, it sorts itself out after cold reboot or a check on pending upgrades. Sometimes (this is Windows, so things are usually 'sometimes'), you need to go to Device Manager, go to VIEWS tab and turn on ability to see 'HIDDEN' - then remove all audio drivers and all audio controllers. Sometimes, I also have to remember to turn the speakers on.