TUF X670E-Plus - heavily distorted audio

[LumKitty]

Got an issue with the onboard audio. It worked for a bit but now voices are getting heavily lowered and echoey, or are completely muted. Male voices seem to be worse affected. I think this started when I tried to update my drivers from the Microsoft basic ones.

I've tried:

Full uninstall of the Realtek drivers using DDU and reverting back to Microsoft defaults
Disabling DTS effects
Disabling enhancements
Official drivers posted for my board on the Asus site
A newer version of the Asus drivers found on these forums
Checking that it is set to stereo and not 5.1, 7.1 etc.
Tested my headphones with a USB audio device (works fine)
Recording the audio output to the Realtek using Audacity (sounds perfectly normal)

Only way I could get a recording of how messed up the audio is was to hold my headphones up to my USB mic. Recording is here: https://mega.nz/file/qfJA3bib#t3jur-eZMKIwoEBmwRzEVPoFz0zHL2jCQbjqUT21VVI this was from a random LinusTechTips video about apple servers, and shows just how messed up it gets.

Any ideas?

Edit: Realised about 5s after hitting post that it's in the wrong section, but there seems to be no way to delete or move it 😞

[DrScana]

Have you got some software for ARGB?
I got the same problem with SignalRGB, uninstalled and no more sound problem...

[LumKitty]

No RGB. I even have the onboard Aura RGB disabled

[LumKitty]

Ok whatever this issue is, it is /not/ software / driver related. I get the exact same problems watching youtube from an Ubuntu live CD.

So either BIOS, firmware, or a hardware fault 😞

[LumKitty]

3 BIOSes later and I think it's a hardware fault. FFS

[LumKitty · Accepted solution]

So this got really weird. It turns out my headphone cable has developed a weird fault where it dislikes certain types of audio jacks. It didn't like the one on my case, or on my mobo, but was fine with the one on my Blue Yeti and on my phone, hence thinking the mobo audio was at fault.

Only found out when trying a different USB audio device, that I had to dig out of storage, and found it didn't like that jack either, except when plugged in half way, then it worked.

Replaced the headphone cable and issue has gone away.