Distorted Sound in MS XBox Party Audio Chat only.....

[Peter731]

Hello,
I have probably quite an uncommen problem. I have a absolute beast of a PC, which is powered by an Intel 13900 CPU and an Asus ROG STRIX Z790-E GAMING WIFI MoBo. As I'm pleased with the power of everything, I have a problem with a distorted Audio Chat with the MS GameBar or the XBox-App. When I'm in the Chat, then I hear my buddies sometimes ok, but most of the time its laggy, robotic, distorted and almopst not understandable. I'm the onlyone with this problem un the chat !!
As this problem suddenly occured, I checked the Sound-Settings. But Skype, Teams, Discord -> all runs fine. Also Music and GameMusic is OK. So, I installed the SoundDriver new. I changed the Headset twice. One headset had an integrated SoundCard but nothing changed. I deleted every SoundDriver and installed new. I deleted XBOX Game Bar and installed new. I tried 1000 different tricks from the Net but with no success. 
I must admit that from time to time, the Audio Chat come for 10 minutes ok and then gets again distorted.  So fdrom Driver Problem, to Appproblem, to Headset, Windows problem -> I think now, it's something with the MoBo. Especially thats ONLY in XBox Party Audio Chat, drives me crazy. Has somebody an advise for me ? What can be done to find out or better to slove this issue ??
BTW: I heard that this is a problem of MS and the Chat itself, but why only me, with a HighEnd machine should get it ? Anyway, every input is highly appreciated´. THX Peter

[JohnAb]

Probably a good idea to go to MoKiChU's sound drivers thread here:

https://rog-forum.asus.com/t5/intel-700-600-series/drivers-realtek-usb-audio-intel-5xx-6xx-7xx-amp-a...

... and follow the cleanup instructions. Then see if things are working with the Microsoft/Windows sound drivers. If not, try a fresh Realtek drivers install, sounds like it's probably a drivers issue to me. The Realtek drivers can be really problematic, so a fresh install might fix things. I'd also suggest that you don't have the Sonic Studio 3 app (or the Realtek Console app) installed while testing. 

You can also ask MoKiChU if needed - he's a drivers magician!

By the way, there is an audio chip firmware update for your board "Audio ALC4080 FW update tool" on you motherboard's support pages. Might also be worth a try. 

[Peter731]

Hello,
THX quite a lot John - I will go through this sound drivers' thread and make again this fresh install of the drivers. 
Because I did this before, I'm afraid it will not work out and therefore also took your second advise and contacted MoKiChu with a PM.
I gave him also some follow up information so I will aso write this here:
This "distorted sound" IS ONLY with the XBox Party Audio Chat and only with me. Every other Audio-Chat like Discord, Teams, Skype woks flawless. As also Game Sound, YouTube, Spotify or mp3 - all is OK.
I'm unsure if this is the RealtekDriver, because I change also the Headset once to a "Teufel Cage 2" and this has a integrated USB-SoundCard and the problem persisted. Also changes from USB to 3.5 Stero jack didn't change anything. Thats why I came up with the idea it must be the MoBo.
One last thing: Yesterday I had the opportunity to make again a test (because with the XBox Audio chat doesn't exist a TestCall like in Skype, so I need anytime a friend being online to test) and it wasn't working. I then used my iphone, started the XBOX-App and wanted to continue with the HEadphone and HELL -> it was also distorted !!! WTF ??? I then closed it, took the phone out of the WLAN and restarted and then it was working.....
So MAYBE it's an issue with the Inet Provider or Router or some IP settings like Teredo ?? I wasn't able yesterday to fully test this out (because we had a meetup with other waiting players), so MAYBE it was just a coincedence and after restarting the iPhone XBox App would have helped anyway, but I'm very ALERT to this happening and will also focus on this issue the next time, when I check this.
This problem drives me nuts and sadly my colleagues are using the XBox so swithcing to Discord etc. is sadly in the moment no option :-(. Any help is higly appreciated.........THX a lot....Peter

[JohnAb]

Sounds like an odd problem. Struggling to understand exactly what is happening, but if hardware, then I assume you would also be having problems with the other apps? It's an obvious suggestion I know, but have you tried repairing/reinstalling the XBox Party app? I don't use it myself, so no idea how it works or what it does. You could also try booting to another OS like Linux using a live USB (Linux Mint usually works well with most hardware) and then (if the XBox party app works on Linux) you could do some more audio tests?

You could also try backing up your files and reinstalling Windows - I know it's a big job, so an easy way is to take an image of your OS first using something free like Macrium Reflect and then if things aren't any better you can always restore the image again. Might be worth an hour to dig a bit deeper and you might discover a way forward. 

[Peter731]

Hello,

thx for answer and suggestions. MoKiChU's told me to get in touch with the XBOX Support and my ISP Provider, which I'm doing now. I also asked for reinstalling the XBOX-App, because the GameBar is integrated into Win11. The answer was this PowershellCode from the Supporter:

Get-AppxPackage windowsstore | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppXPackage WindowsStore -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml”}
Get-AppxPackage xboxapp | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-appxpackage Microsoft.GamingServices | remove-AppxPackage -allusers
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml”}
Get-AppxPackage | % { Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppxManifest.xml” -verbose }
Get-AppxPackage windowsstore | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage xboxapp | Remove-AppxPackage

Restart PC

Open Powershell

Get-AppXPackage WindowsStore -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml”}

Today/Tomorrow I will test out all these things and if I find the culprit, I'll mention here also. THX a ton John -> I wasn't finding the "solution" but everythging here brought me nearer the answer ;-).
Have a good week
Peter
PS: Reinstalling Windows is the last thing I wanna do -> I have 7 SSDs with 14 TB of installed Data..... 😵

[JohnAb]

Sounds like progress of sorts, so hope you get there soon. I understand about a Windows reinstall, I also have a lot of data across 7 drives and then a NAS on the network, plus a large external drive for extra backups just in case. It's not so much the Windows reinstall for me, it's getting all of the other software, MS Office, e-mail and apps all set up again. It's not difficult as such, but it takes a full day. So yeah, best avoided, lol.

If you don't do it already, I'd highly recommend backing up your OS drive every few days. If anything goes wrong, a 10 minute restore is much better than a full day of hard work!  One of the main benefits is that I can try new software or driver updates without having to worry. Anyway, my money is on the fact that you don't have a hardware issue, so I hope that the steps you posted work out for you. Post an update when you've tried, I'd be interested to know if you get it resolved...