recording slider mutes playback

Absolutely so - the drivers on the Realtek site are generic and not matched to your motherboard, so I think you received a poor answer from HP if they did not point that out.

Why do you have a more modern driver than the supported HP driver for Windows XP? Have you tried HP’s supported driver?

No. It is a problem with your sound device.

Please also see Important information for Windows XP users about the security risk of running XP now that Microsoft no longer support it.


Gale