ALC4082 drops the start of audio (Z690 Hero)

[BobVul]

When going from an idle/silent state to a sound playing, the beginning of the sound gets cut off/never plays.

This is also apparent when short notification sounds are played. For example, sometimes almost the entire Discord message notification sound will be missed, sometimes the second half of it will play.


The most reliable way to reproduce the issue is to use the Windows sound output device "test" button, which plays a test tone on each channel sequentially. As long as no other audio is playing, some 25-50% of the time you'll hear the first tone (left) play, and then the second tone (right) will be missing the first 0.5s.

Following some forum diving, a workaround that's currently working for me is to enable listen to this device against Stereo Mix, and then set its volume to 0. The explanation offered is that this keeps the audio hardware awake, preventing the delayed wake-up issues. Doing this, the "test" button now works correctly, and I no longer have issues with notification sounds.


Here's a video of the test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuWOuM19oFM

Test 1: shows the issue
Test 2: apply the stereo mix listen workaround, issue no longer occurs
Test 3: remove the workaround, shows the issue again




My current audio driver version is 6.3.9600.2297, the latest available on the support site at https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-maximus/rog-maximus-z690-hero-model/helpdesk_download.

Also can confirm that none of the BIOS versions 0237 (original), 0702, nor 0803 (newest) have any effect.

Have also tried driver version 6.3.9600.2306 from MoKiChU's package, which did not have any effect either. The problem remains the same as shown in the video linked above.


I strongly believe this is basically the "wake up delay" problem described in previous threads, e.g. https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?125652-Fed-up-with-the-ROG-STRIX-Z590-E-GAMING-WIFI-audio-..., but I was told to create a new one for the different board.

[Jozh89]

Ive updated to the drivers on the formula page (its the exact same soundcard etc) and the issue appears to be gone.

https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/01AUDIO/DRV_Audio_RTK_USB_CNT_DTSP_TP_W11_64_V6396002307_20211...

[BobVul]

> May I have the video about the crackling on wakeup and missing significant portions of other notification audio with new audio FW?

The crackling seems to be fairly minimal now. I can't reproduce it reliably.

I've recorded this video demonstrating the issue with notification sounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJtwna3LZx0

I used https://www.myinstants.com/instant/discord-notification-38119/ in place of the actual Discord application, since triggering sounds from it is hard to do consistently. Please note the cut off effect I hear using the sample button is exactly the same as what I previously heard from Discord itself.

These tests are done in Firefox. I've also had missing sound from the beginning of other notifications (MS Teams, Element/Matrix) that I run in Firefox, so I consider this a good test/example.

There are four repetitions of the test being run in this video. Each test is a series of 5 button presses (= 5 notification sounds), followed by closing the window and re-opening it for the next test. For whatever reason, closing the window seems to reset Firefox's state and allow the audio device to idle again. Please note that actively playing other audio in the background, e.g. music, avoids this effect entirely: it is certainly not a Firefox browser bug.

Test 1: 5 button presses, notice the first sound is cut off
Test 2: 5 button presses, notice the first sound is cut off
Test 3: enable stereo mix => listen to this device workaround (prevent audio idling), 5 button presses, notice the first sound is played in full
Test 4: disable stereo mix workaround, 5 button presses, notice the first sound is cut off

It's clear to me that having the "listen to this device" workaround active, or otherwise keeping the audio device active, prevents notification sounds from being cut off in the way that is shown in tests 1, 2 and 4.

[BobVul]

I've now updated to v2307 from https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?118522-DRIVERS-Realtek-USB-Audio-(MB-Intel-5xx-6xx-amp-AMD..., to no improvement (over v2306).

Note that the test shown in my most recent video does not reproduce on Chrome, only on Firefox. On the whole, the new firmware version (and perhaps driver) seems to have reduced the occurrences of the issue, it still persists in some cases. Notably, my previous repro steps against the sound control panel test all seem to pass now, and I have only noticed the issue a single time with the real Discord notification in the last day.

Thank you for that update. At the very least it's no longer as glaring a fault as it previously was.

However, "rarely occurring" isn't quite good enough for my purposes, so for the time being, I will go back to using the stereo mix workaround.

[Nuckels]

BobVul wrote:
I've now updated to v2307 from https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?118522-DRIVERS-Realtek-USB-Audio-(MB-Intel-5xx-6xx-amp-AMD..., to no improvement (over v2306).

Note that the test shown in my most recent video does not reproduce on Chrome, only on Firefox. On the whole, the new firmware version (and perhaps driver) seems to have reduced the occurrences of the issue, it still persists in some cases. Notably, my previous repro steps against the sound control panel test all seem to pass now, and I have only noticed the issue a single time with the real Discord notification in the last day.

Thank you for that update. At the very least it's no longer as glaring a fault as it previously was.

However, "rarely occurring" isn't quite good enough for my purposes, so for the time being, I will go back to using the stereo mix workaround.

Did you also upgrade the firmware?

[BobVul]

Nuckels wrote:
Did you also upgrade the firmware?

Yes, as noted in my previous post, it took me from 0007 to 0011. At this point I'm fully up to date with the latest firmware and drivers available.

The firmware update definitely improved things significantly over the original, but there's a few issues remaining.

[STARRAIN_ROG]

Hi BobVul,
Thank you for your reply.
May I double confirm only when you open firefox in background, the notifications(discord, MS Teams, Element/Matrix) sound would be cut off?
Could you please install the Realtek USB Audio Driver V6.3.9600.2307 from our support site with bios all default settings to check the discord and the notifications (MS Teams, Element/Matrix) you mentioned in firefox?
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/01AUDIO/DRV_Audio_RTK_USB_CNT_DTSP_TP_W11_64_V6396002307_20211...
Thank you.

[BobVul]

STARRAIN@ROG wrote:
Hi BobVul,
May I double confirm only when you open firefox in background, the notifications(discord, MS Teams, Element/Matrix) sound would be cut off?

Note that this has nothing to do with Firefox being open "in the background" or otherwise. I have heard the issue occurring *purely* with Discord.

Just to clarify: the issue is that the beginning of some short sounds will be cut off, if it is the first sound after audio has been idle for a while. Subsequent sounds work fine until the audio output device goes back into an idle state, after which the next sound will have the beginning cut off again. This happens across a range of different sources, however many of them are intermittent and therefore hard to record or provide as an example test case.

I merely used Firefox to test because it was the easiest way I could get a reproducible test case. I can consistently reproduce the issue, as shown in the video, by visiting that site that plays the Discord notification sound and using that button, instead of the real Discord.

In my experience as a software developer, I much prefer a consistently reproducible example, even if it's not the original place it occurred, as it makes testing much simpler. However, please do not mistake this one example as the only situation where it occurs.





I will try installing the copy of the driver you linked when I have time later. It appears to be the same version but perhaps the different install method will make a difference.

[BobVul]

STARRAIN@ROG wrote:

Could you please install the Realtek USB Audio Driver V6.3.9600.2307 from our support site with bios all default settings to check the discord and the notifications (MS Teams, Element/Matrix) you mentioned in firefox?
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/01AUDIO/DRV_Audio_RTK_USB_CNT_DTSP_TP_W11_64_V6396002307_20211...

Tried the linked drivers, no detectable improvement over my last test.

[Nuckels]

BobVul wrote:
Tried the linked drivers, no detectable improvement over my last test.

Hope you got more luck than I did thus far, at least the static audio bug seems gone for now. Now if we can fix this wake up delay were getting somewhere.

Just like OP, the same issue still occurs on the z590 platform (makes sense as its the same audio chip and even the same drivers.)

[SneakyLittleman]

Nuckels wrote:
Hope you got more luck than I did thus far, at least the static audio bug seems gone for now. Now if we can fix this wake up delay were getting somewhere.

Just like OP, the same issue still occurs on the z590 platform (makes sense as its the same audio chip and even the same drivers.)

Are you using the optical output of your motherboard? If so, this is an inevitable, well-documented bug and has nothing to do with drivers or mobo.
The spdif signal goes to "sleep" automatically when no sound is played, and the next sound will miss the first 500ms while it wakes up.
I've installed a little utility that prevents spdif from "sleeping". See:
https://github.com/handruin/spdif-ka

If you're using analog audio, then the problem lies elsewhere.

EDIT: Sorry, I'm actually using THIS tool 😄 https://veg.by/en/projects/soundkeeper/