ASUS Sonic Studio 3 / Realtek HD Driver Sound Issue

[daydr3am3r]

Hi everyone,

1 or so week ago I started having problems with Sonic Studio 3. Specifically, it started crashing randomly and no matter what changes I made, nothing worked.

I reinstalled Sonic Studio 3 (currently I have v3.16.9.0 installed) and Sonic Radar 3 but nothing changed. I tried reinstalling the audio driver, but again, nothing changed.

Moreover, now in some games and apps, when I use the speakers (I have multiple audio devices) the sound is incredibly low. There are games where I have to tune up the sound to max and still I barely hear anything.

Also, if I try to activate the Audio Enhancements in Windows, the output automatically changes to headphones, even though technically the speakers remain selected.

Any ideas? I am using Windows 10 Pro x64, up to date (2004) on this:

Motherboard: ROG MAXIMUS XI HERO (WI-FI)
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-9700K Coffee Lake, 3.60GHz
Memory (part number): DDR4 Corsair Vengeance 4x8GB 3200MHz
Graphics Card #1: ASUS GeForce® GTX 1080 Ti STRIX, 11GB GDDR5X
Monitor: Asus ROG PG278QR
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15
Case: Be quiet! Dark Base 900, FullTower
Power Supply: Corsair HX750i, 750W, 80 PLUS Platinum
Keyboard: SteelSeries APEX 350
Mouse: SteelSeries Rival 700
Headset: SteelSeries Arctis 7
Headset/Speakers: Microlab FC530U
OS: Windows 10 Pro
Network Router: AC1750 TP-Link Archer C7, Gigabit, Dual Band

[MoKiChU]

Hi,

The "Enable audio enhancements" box (in Properties > Advanced tab of your outputs) should be ticked, otherwise you will lose the functions of SS3.

You have an ASUS ROG SS3 motherboard, so :

You need Realtek Audio Drivers (UAD - ASUS ROG SS3) from the first post of this thread.

Follow scrupulously your CLEANUP process then your INSTALL process, for the next drivers packages that I would release, you will can directly follow your UPDATE process.

[daydr3am3r]

Thanks for the help.
I followed all the steps and I managed to get the sound to some acceptable levels. However, I now am in the same situation as I was before - SS3 was OK on first run but when I tried to change the profiles (Music, Movie, etc.) nothing changed.
I closed it and when I tried to run it again I get the same error as before.

And some apps / games still have incredibly low sound.
Any ideas?

[MoKiChU]

Hi,

Re-follow scrupulously the CLEANUP process then INSTALL process, but this time to prevent Windows Update from generating a drivers install conflict, disable your Internet connection from the start of the INSTALL process (before cleanup step) until the end of drivers install of the INSTALL process (after the restart). For the next drivers packages that I would release, you will can directly follow the UPDATE process.

[daydr3am3r]

MoKiChU wrote:
Hi,

Re-follow scrupulously the CLEANUP process then INSTALL process, but this time to prevent Windows Update from generating a drivers install conflict, disable your Internet connection from the start of the INSTALL process (before cleanup step) until the end of drivers install of the INSTALL process (after the restart). For the next drivers packages that I would release, you will can directly follow the UPDATE process.

Thanks again for your help and sorry for the late reply.
I followed the steps provided but unfortunately the result is the same.
Moreover, although not sure if related or not, now ASUS GPU Tweak stopped working and reinstalling it did not help...

[MoKiChU]

daydr3am3r wrote:
Thanks again for your help and sorry for the late reply.
I followed the steps provided but unfortunately the result is the same.
Moreover, although not sure if related or not, now ASUS GPU Tweak stopped working and reinstalling it did not help...

Hi,

You said : "1 or so week ago I started having problems with Sonic Studio 3"

Has your SteelSeries Software been updated at that time ?

Anyway, you may be have kind of conflicts with others devices/drivers/softwares, so in order to determine which one generates the conflict, try this :

- Disconnect all the USB dongle peripheral devices.
- Uninstall all the software of your headset/headphones/mic and/or peripheral devices which could contain audio modules like SteelSeries Engine Software or ROG Armoury (even if you installed the software for a device which is not audio).

- Follow scrupulously your CLEANUP process
- Use this SS3 Cleaner tool (Right click on "A-Volute_SS3_Cleanup.exe" > Run as administrator) then restart your PC
- Follow scrupulously your INSTALL process

For the next drivers packages that I would release, you will can directly follow the UPDATE process.

If everything works after that, reconnect the USB dongle & Install the software of your headset/headphones/mic/peripheral devices one by one in order to determine which one generates the conflict then that you can report it to the adequate support service of the problematic device.

[esarhaddon]

daydr3am3r wrote:
Hi everyone,

1 or so week ago I started having problems with Sonic Studio 3. Specifically, it started crashing randomly and no matter what changes I made, nothing worked.

I reinstalled Sonic Studio 3 (currently I have v3.16.9.0 installed) and Sonic Radar 3 but nothing changed. I tried reinstalling the audio driver, but again, nothing changed.

Moreover, now in some games and apps, when I use the speakers (I have multiple audio devices) the sound is incredibly low. There are games where I have to tune up the sound to max and still I barely hear anything.

Also, if I try to activate the Audio Enhancements in Windows, the output automatically changes to headphones, even though technically the speakers remain selected.

Any ideas? I am using Windows 10 Pro x64, up to date (2004) on this:

Motherboard: ROG MAXIMUS XI HERO (WI-FI)
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-9700K Coffee Lake, 3.60GHz
Memory (part number): DDR4 Corsair Vengeance 4x8GB 3200MHz
Graphics Card #1: ASUS GeForce® GTX 1080 Ti STRIX, 11GB GDDR5X
Monitor: Asus ROG PG278QR
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15
Case: Be quiet! Dark Base 900, FullTower
Power Supply: Corsair HX750i, 750W, 80 PLUS Platinum
Keyboard: SteelSeries APEX 350
Mouse: SteelSeries Rival 700
Headset: SteelSeries Arctis 7
Headset/Speakers: Microlab FC530U
OS: Windows 10 Pro
Network Router: AC1750 TP-Link Archer C7, Gigabit, Dual Band

This is a very old problem but in standard ASUS style, they continue to use third-party stuff without ever figuring out what happened or how to fix it. It is now 2022 and I have almost an identical problem on an ASUS MoBo with a Realtek audio chip and A faulty Sonic Studio install or removal. I finally found on Reddit some Windows Power Shell commands that partially removed the problem for me, but I still can not get the Back (pink) audio socket to produce any sound. And as usual, I have talked extensively to CS and though they insure that I was talking to the correct person, I still after over a week not only don't have a resolution, but it took me talking to 6 different people over the course of many days repeatedly asking for a case number and finally after a 15-minute discussion with the last guy he finally gave me a case number, but even he had to be asked multiple times before providing the number. I have caught ASUS engaging in multiple cases of what I consider Fraud and most of the time other than promises to resolve the issue, they do not and I hear nothing.

[daydr3am3r]

esarhaddon wrote:
This is a very old problem but in standard ASUS style, they continue to use third-party stuff without ever figuring out what happened or how to fix it. It is now 2022 and I have almost an identical problem on an ASUS MoBo with a Realtek audio chip and A faulty Sonic Studio install or removal. I finally found on Reddit some Windows Power Shell commands that partially removed the problem for me, but I still can not get the Back (pink) audio socket to produce any sound. And as usual, I have talked extensively to CS and though they insure that I was talking to the correct person, I still after over a week not only don't have a resolution, but it took me talking to 6 different people over the course of many days repeatedly asking for a case number and finally after a 15-minute discussion with the last guy he finally gave me a case number, but even he had to be asked multiple times before providing the number. I have caught ASUS engaging in multiple cases of what I consider Fraud and most of the time other than promises to resolve the issue, they do not and I hear nothing.

Unfortunately I haven't found a solution yet. Sonic Studio 3 crashes at start in 95% of the cases.
Moreover, when I switch between apps that have sound, say I pause VLC and start watching YouTube and then pause them both, when I start any of them the sound is very low. I pause the apps and if I start another app, the sound is back on high level.
Imagine how frustrating this is in the middle of the night, if you forget you have this issue. And I usually do.
It seems in their attempt to make things fancy, ASUS makes things buggier as well.

[cekeu]

See if you have DTS Sound Unbound installed, if so uninstall it to see.
I had a similar problem with volume dropping and without DTS Sound Unbound I no longer have sound dropping.
If not, you can always reinstall it from the Microsoft Store.