Xonar Phoebus causing audio-pops and drop outs with official drivers

[thedrunkenpumpk]

I got a pair of Astro A50 wireless headphones for christmas and they are amazing - they use Optical/Digital audio

I plugged them in and listened to music, watched a couple clips on youtube then started gaming

Up until this point, the sound was amazing and playing a good fps like Far Cry 3 blew me away

But then I started noticing audio pops and minor drop-outs - they were extremely frequent as well (I had an analogue 5.1 ch headset previous - ROCCAT KAVE - and there were none of these issues)

In the end I figured it was the ASUS drivers/software as when I uninstalled the drivers/software I never experienced any more audio pops/drop-outs. I even tried all of the available drivers for my system and the issues persisted consistently

I also tested the headphones on another system and didn't receive any audio pops or drop-outs - it was also suggested to me to by Astro to lower game settings but that didn't help

At the moment I am still using the Windows default drivers for the Phoebus and although the sound quality isn't as good as the drivers can get, at least there is no audio drop-outs

This is more of an FYI to the ASUS guys and for anyone else looking to get a pair of A50s or anything else similar (digital etc.) plus if the problem could be isolated I can let Astro know as well (have a thread on their forums also, describing the situation)

Cheers!

[Glasofruix]

When you get your audio through the optical out, you bypass the soundcard entirely (at least the analog treatements and filtering). Now you're just using the astro thingy as a sound card, you could do that with your onboard codec wihout any change in quality.
Another thing, by default you're not getting surround through the optical connection without dts/dolby encoding.

[thedrunkenpumpk]

Is there any way to install the dobly encoding (dolby digital live) without installing the phoebus driver/software bundles?

As the quality was better with the drivers because of the extra dolby encoding

I'd like to know what causes the pops/distortion - that way, at least I can see if I can isolate what is causing it and remove/tweak it

[thedrunkenpumpk]

Tried with the latest drivers and still get the drop-outs when gaming

It's a pity because I can't fully utilise the dobly digital live effects - although installing the offical drivers via the .ini file (using device manager) seems to be some sort of a temporary fix

It's pretty good, but it still doesn't give me all the options/effects of the official drivers installed via the setup.exe

Ultimately, I'd love to isolate the problem and work from there, but it seems whatever is causing it is included in the official drivers (all of them - including the beta ones)

[Retired]

The card is a pain to install. I'm just using the headphone amp and I know how it goes.


Try this reinstall.

Download the latest drivers and unzip them.

Remove all drivers.

Run CCleaner, clear out all stuff in the registry and then the system and advanced areas under cleaner.

Restart.

After Windows installs a generic driver, open device manager and choose to update the driver, use the path were you unzipped it. (The root of that area).

Now install it normally with the installer.

Restart.

Run CCleaner, clear out the junk again.

Play a file that starts playing audio right away (no delay). The skip should disappear. You should setup it up again to where you had your old settings.

Turning off options like cool-n-quiet in the BIOS can help problems with distorted audio on weaker processors.

I found this works for me. It's annoying. Most driver makers just update the files and make you restart and don't put you through the heck of uninstalling the old drivers first.

As for games. I've found no fixes for legacy games that use EAX effects. It just goes out of sync in under a minute. Try a legacy game with GX on like Half-Life (WON version if you can get it to run, the steam version removes all EAX and A3D options) and you'll see what I mean after about a minute. Assuming you use Windows 7 here and not Windows 8. Most newer games mix their audio in software now and don't use hardware extensions through Direct3D Sound like they used to. The channels usually don't drift in those cases when the games does it's own software mixing and doesn't need 3D audio hardware to do it, but buffer under run issues can cause pops and drop outs. The driver isn't efficient for some reason.

[thedrunkenpumpk]

SoundMan wrote:
The card is a pain to install. I'm just using the headphone amp and I know how it goes.


Try this reinstall.

Download the latest drivers and unzip them.

Remove all drivers.

Run CCleaner, clear out all stuff in the registry and then the system and advanced areas under cleaner.

Restart.

After Windows installs a generic driver, open device manager and choose to update the driver, use the path were you unzipped it. (The root of that area).

Now install it normally with the installer.

Restart.

Run CCleaner, clear out the junk again.

Play a file that starts playing audio right away (no delay). The skip should disappear. You should setup it up again to where you had your old settings.

Turning off options like cool-n-quiet in the BIOS can help problems with distorted audio on weaker processors.

I found this works for me. It's annoying. Most driver makers just update the files and make you restart and don't put you through the heck of uninstalling the old drivers first.

As for games. I've found no fixes for legacy games that use EAX effects. It just goes out of sync in under a minute. Try a legacy game with GX on like Half-Life (WON version if you can get it to run, the steam version removes all EAX and A3D options) and you'll see what I mean after about a minute. Assuming you use Windows 7 here and not Windows 8. Most newer games mix their audio in software now and don't use hardware extensions through Direct3D Sound like they used to. The channels usually don't drift in those cases when the games does it's own software mixing and doesn't need 3D audio hardware to do it, but buffer under run issues can cause pops and drop outs. The driver isn't efficient for some reason.

Will give this a go - hopefully it helps the issue

Thanks for the suggestions!

[Raja]

The card will also glitch if it gets too hot - can happen if placed between or near GPUs with insufficient airflow.

[thedrunkenpumpk]

Tried the above method but had no luck - the pops/drop-outs took a lot longer to start happening though

At the moment I am just using the drivers installed via device manager (so without the software, as a I mentioned earlier) and it seems to be running fine

I get the odd crackle every now and then, but it is hardly noticeable at all compared to the disruptions, pops and drop-outs I was getting with the official driver/software combination

Thanks again for the support though - I really appreciate it

Also RE: the heat issue, my card is on top of my graphics card and I get maybe a 40-50 degree reading from it via my fan & temperature monitor, so I dunno if that is the issue.

I may have to bite the bullet and get another sound-card in the future - shame, as despite it's drawbacks with the software, the Phoebus is a damn good card

[Raja]

Put a fan near the card and see if it changes the pop stuff. If not, then I wonder if you have a faulty card there.

[fordmustang68gt]

I am getting the same thing, especially when playing World of Tanks. I hear a pop in the right ear and in a couple of seconds in the left ear. Also, the sound will drop for a second and then start back up. This does not happen when playing U-tube videos or music. Just in-game. I have noticed it in Titan-fall also. I don't think as bad as in World of Tanks. I too have been looking at what is causing the issue. I have a full case, level 10 and lots of air flow. Also, I am running SLI, but both cards exhaust through the back, so don't add a lot of heat to the interior of the case. I am using optical out into a mix-amp and then to a headphone, not a headset. I am using Dolby Theater with only the EQ and surround on. It is just very strange as it is limited just to gaming.