Rough/scratchy audio --> Amplification level [FIX/WORKAROUND]

[leyabe]

Hi,

I am getting rough/scratchy/crackling sound from my onboard sound card. This occurs at any volume level above 50-60% in Windows. In Windows 10, if you go in the Sound control panel the issue is easy to experience by playing the "Asterisk" or "Calendar Reminder" sounds, but I heard it in other sounds too, even listening to music didn't seem right.

Not speaker-related, as it happens with my two different speaker sets, and with my headset too.

I traced the issue back to the amplification level in ASUS's Supreme FX Audio driver.
For me, the Amplification level was set to "Extreme" by default, which is the highest of the three possible levels. Dialing this back to the lowest level, labeled "Performace" in the driver (typo in the driver, not my typo) resolves this issue. With basic ("Performace") amplification no sound distortion is heard.

As additional information, I found that not installing the ASUS Audio driver and relying on the Windows 10's built-in driver results in the same issue, and in fact even worse as the Windows driver does not appear to expose an UI to change the amplification level, so you're stuck on "Extreme".
to save everyone's time, the Windows built-in driver does not appear to honor the registry setting where the ASUS driver stores it's amplification level setting either.

Lastly, using the official Realtek driver as opposed to the Windows or the ASUS driver also resolves the issue, as it defaults to the lowest amplification level and not the highest. The Realtek driver does not appear to expose an UI to this setting either, but at least makes my PC sound better, at least in my case.

[leyabe]

Forgot an important detail: You might tell me to just use the ASUS driver, lower the amplification level and be done with it, but the setting will revert to "Extreme" every time the PC is rebooted.

[Nate152]

Hi leyabe

Maybe try lowering the sampling rate, I get crackling if it's set too high.

Right click on the speaker at the bottom right of your screen and select playback devices, Right click on speakers and select properties. In the speaker properties click the advanced tab, I have 24 bit 48000 Hz (Studio Quality) set.

[leyabe]

Nate152 wrote:

Maybe try lowering the sampling rate, I get crackling if it's set too high.

Thanks for the feedback, but changing the sampling rate didn't fix the issue for me. I changed it from default 24 bit 48000 Hz down to the lowest setting 16 bit 44100 Hz and same issue still happens. Out of curiosity I tried the highest setting 32 Bit 192000 Hz and didn't help either.

[Nate152]

Here's an article with a bunch of suggestions, see if anything here helps you.

https://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-7/fix-audio-staticcracklingpopping-with-realtek-sound-card/

[Favonius]

Had a similar issue when I first got my system going. The problem ended up being the ASUS AI Suite software had changed an option in the boot configuration for Windows. I found the fix on this forum but I can't find the post so I'll just list the steps again;

Open an admin command prompt/powershell and type "bcdedit /enum". If you see "useplatformclock true" in the output then run "bcdedit /set useplatformclock false", followed by "bcdedit /deletevalue useplatformclock". Once that's done then reboot.

This fixed my audio issues and some other problems with the system stuttering during usage.

[leyabe]

@Favonius: Thanks but I did not have that entry in my bcdedit.
@Nate152: Thanks again, I already tried some of the things in your link, but there are new ones I never tried in there too. Working on this.
(Overall not too big of an issue though, as I said I found a workaround as per my initial post, but I still think this is worth investigating further.)

[Nate152]

I'm using the Maximus IX Code but the Realtek driver should be basically the same unless you have a newer version, for me it also installs Sonic Studio 3 and Sonic Radar 3.

I'm using the Plantronics Gamecom 380 headset and it sets it to Extreme for me too and I'm not getting crackling. If I connect them to the front case jacks it sets it to performance, you could give that a try it should still sound good.

I'm sure you've tried the latest Realtek driver from the ASUS Support Center.

Version - V6.0.1.8210

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/ROG-ZENITH-EXTREME/HelpDesk_Download/

Here's what mine looks like, click it to make it bigger.

[leyabe]

Well, this thread has lost traction, but ASUS, is there any way you would be able to provide an updated driver that remembers the "Amplify level" that the user selects?
Currently this setting reverts to "Extreme" at every reboot.

I don't think this should be very difficult to implement, the mechanism for switching amplify levels is already there, you just need to remember the user selection across reboots, you know, save the setting to the registry or to a local .ini or .cfg file or something... shouldn't be that hard.

[Raja]

leyabe wrote:
Well, this thread has lost traction, but ASUS, is there any way you would be able to provide an updated driver that remembers the "Amplify level" that the user selects?
Currently this setting reverts to "Extreme" at every reboot.

I don't think this should be very difficult to implement, the mechanism for switching amplify levels is already there, you just need to remember the user selection across reboots, you know, save the setting to the registry or to a local .ini or .cfg file or something... shouldn't be that hard.

I'll report this back. Have you entered this into the bug report form?