How the audio and video drivers interact is described a bit in= [1]: The audio function and the graphics function work hand-in-hand to provide audio suppo= rt. At modeset time, the graphics driver extracts information from the display's EDID and the mode timings and sticks it into registers in the graphics function. These get processed by the hardware and spit out the other side v= ia the "EDID-Like Data" fields in the audio function, described in [= 2]. I'm not completely sure how this works on Windows, but my understanding is = that the display driver enables or disables the audio function at modeset time, = and Windows handles that as a PCI hot-plug or -unplug, loading or unloading the audio driver as necessary. On Linux, I think the nouveau and nvidia-modeset drivers would need to call into some hypothetical new audio power module to coordinate that, so the kernel can know when to rescan or remove the audio device. [1] https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/gpu-hdmi-audio-docum= ent/#_driver_architecture [2] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/standar= ds/high-definition-audio-specification.html