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Audio sounds like crap...need help!

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petethekiller

New Member
Joined
Feb 29, 2012
Hey guys, I just finished building my first pc...being on a budget my build went as such:

gigabye 990FXA-UD3
AMD 555BE
Corsair Force 64 gig SSD
WD Blue 500 gig HD
8 gig of G. Skill ram
EVGA GTX550ti
Win 7 Pro.

Assembly and first fire went well, I first noticed the audio sounded crackly and digital like almost immediately. I was not worried as I new I needed to install all the latest drivers. After installing all of the latest driver for all components nothing has changed. :bang head

So I go to control panel and open RealTEK AUDIO config/test software and in this screen when I test the audio it sounds fine. :screwy:

Any other application that requires audio sounds like crap.
Anybody have any ideas where I need to look?

I am using the analog connections and not the digital at the moment. I need to the the digital outputs when I get time.

Thanks
 
they are just the same crappy Dell 2.1 set up from my previous PC....they function fine. I my tried headphones to see if I get the same results and I do.

Is it my mother board? would a sound card fix this?
 
I would make sure that the 3.5mm jack is clear (there could be some dust in there...). If it is clear...then it is probably your mobo, and yes a sound card should fix that.
 
Before you go buying a sound card, check the priority of sound and media applications in the windows registry. If it is for some reason set to 0 or something stupid like that, make it 20 which is normal.
 
My headphones do this at certain sound levels because they are going out. Does it improve or get worse if you move the sound level around slowly?
 
Before you change to a soundcard perhaps I could tell you about a similar issue I had and my findings. I found onboard was crackly so I installed an Asus Xonar DX, however I noticed when there was no playback there was still a crackling noise in the background. Eventually I toucked the 3.5mm jack to an exposed metal part of my case and found that the exact noise was being produced throughout my case.

I've concluded that the noise is created by some other device in my house as the fault has occurred with two mainboards and two separate sound cards. The better the quality of the headphones you get the more noticeable the sound becomes.

My fix has been this. I've ordered a Turtle Beach DSS 2 Optical game DAC for $60. This will electronically decouple my audio from the computer itself and theoretically avoid the noise by using the optical Toslink out from my mainboard. I'm hoping it fixes my issue.

Turtle Beach Ear Force DSS 2
 
I had this issue with my Asus board with the front headphone jack. I figured what the issue was for me. The front HD sound header cable was crossing a fan and it was picking up fan vibration noise. I rerouted the cable and it went away.
 
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