Unwanted voice in speakers

[fabulouscoops]

Today I updated my AMD video driver to 22.4.1
After reboot I started hearing a voice in my headphones. It sounded like a man speaking Arabic, though I can't be sure of the language.
I brought up the Task Manager and saw nothing but two processes (task manager and HCLOUD) I ended HCLOUD but the speech continued.
I also ended a bunch of background processes to no avail including iTunes. Finally the voice stopped on its own and I rebooted again.

I then ran a virus scan and ran CCleaner. The voice has not returned but I don't think it was anything I did. I am running adblock, noscript, and uBlock Origin on firefox.

I guess my question is: what the heck was that?

 

[EarthDog]

lol wat?

Are your headphone BT/Wireless? I doubt a GPU driver made a difference there...

 

[don256us]

Mental health maybe? jk. What I can add, is that in HAM radio, we've had members complain that neighbors could hear our HAM radio rigs on stereo speakers that weren't even powered on. Upon investigation, we found that the wires for the speakers were coiled up next to the speakers and that the wire length corrisponded to the radio frequency. Cut the wires to fit and the issue went away.

Maybe you had neighbors passing by your windows who were talking loud. Maybe your TV was playing a foriegn movie? A neighbors TV/radio? As my hearing gets worse and worse, I find that I can't tell the direction of sound very well. Really messed with my head the first few times I noticed it. I kept thinking that someone was talking to me from one direction but there was nobody there. Looked around and found the person standing in a different spot. Now that I know that about myself, I don't freak out about it anymore.

I would lean towards an external sound source that was not your headphones or computer. Knowing more about your environment might tell a more rounded story to provide a better guess.

 

[fabulouscoops]

Headphones are USB. I did not have them on my head at the time but heard the voice coming from them so I put them on. It was definitely the headphones. The voice lasted about 2 min.
Its a desktop computer (the top one in my signature.) My browser was closed. I am on a wired network with another computer on a linksys router. wifi was running but I have no wifi in the computer. Printer is USB, not networked. I have a USB mouse and USB keyboard. Dual monitors.

I posted in the windows forum (Win 10) because nothing else was running and I thought it might be malware of some kind. If it happens again where should I look? I suppose I could try and record it.

 

[EarthDog]

I'd check to see if the audio is coming through your PC (see if the little meter moves when it's happening). If not, it's interference of some kind.

 

[don256us]

Did you pair the headphones with another device? Like could it be paired to a phone, tablet or some other device in addition to your computer? Did someone "borrow" your headphones and pair them to another device?

 

[EarthDog]

He did mention it's USB attached... which I'm assuming means not BT/wireless. That said, My Steel Series Arctic 7's BT receiver connects via USB to those wireless BT cans so.... perhaps the OP should clarify?

 

[don256us]

Oh geez. yep. I read it as USB and thought BT. Not sure what I'm doing.

 

[fabulouscoops]

They are not wireless. Corsair gaming headphones with a wire that plugs directly into a USB port on the motherboard. No bluetooth, no pairing with another device.
Thanks for thinking about this and trying to help. At this point, since it has not happened again, I have to assume running AVG and CCleaner and purging cookies has worked.

 

[don256us]

Yeah. That's a tough one. Hopefully it's a "one-off" and won't happen again.

 

[freakdiablo]

FWIW, could still be some sort of interference. I've got an elliptical with a badly shielded amp and speakers, and a few weeks ago it picked up music and what sounded like a phone call with nothing plugged in. Best guess was someone was using a transmitter in the parking lot next to my apartment. So it's rare but it can happen

 

[Robert17]

A three foot long USB cable is the same length as FM & some TV station wavelengths.

 

[don256us]

FWIW, could still be some sort of interference. I've got an elliptical with a badly shielded amp and speakers, and a few weeks ago it picked up music and what sounded like a phone call with nothing plugged in. Best guess was someone was using a transmitter in the parking lot next to my apartment. So it's rare but it can happen

Yeah. Those things boil down to poorly built transmitters and recievers. As the cost goes down, the tolerance levels go up. My Uncle would give his neighbors filters for their TVs and radios when they would complain of HAM radio interference. He would even go door to door to let his neighbors know that if they had issue he would resolve it for free. Keeping in mind that he could bounce radio off the moon to talk to ships on the other side of the globe. Cool stuff. But this applies to much lower level gear too.

 

[freeagent]

The ghost in the machine

 

[shadowdr]

Replying to see if an answer is found. I have had the same issue as you and also have a Corsair USB headphone, mine is wireless with the separate USB plug. I also had a linksys router until yesterday and had thought that it was the router but I do keep the headphones in the same area. Mine is probably the router as it is not quiet but quite loud. Yesterday I heard plain as day a reverse beeper like on a truck and later someone coughing and breathing in the background. I thought it was a mobile router attack hack and rebooted but it has happened several times before. I replaced the EA4500 router because of a limited mbps port yesterday. I don't know how anything could transmit sound through a router but I am pretty sure that is where the sounds are coming from. Guessing now that it may be because the headset is next to the router but I still don't get it. Still guessing but if sound can be transmitted in one direction, sound or data could be going the other way.