Astro A50 Gen 2 Headset mic intermittently cutting out, audio works perfectly

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kanesmall

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Dec 15, 2014
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So basically I've had a pair of Astro A50's (Battlefield 4 Edition) for about 9 months. I used them almost all the time, probably everyday and they worked perfectly. The way that they were plugged into my PC were as follows: The mixamp would have an optical audio in port which would connect an optical audio cable to the optical audio output port on my dedicated Sound Blaster Audigy Rx 7.1 sound card in my PC. This cable would carry my audio so that I would be able to receive 7.1 surround sound. The mic data would be sent over a USB 2.0 cable that I just plugged into a USB 2.0 port on my motherboard's I/O panel. My headset would obviously then be paired with my mixamp and everything was running smoothly.

The problem started after about 8 months of use out of nowhere. What would happen was I would be speaking on Skype with my friends and all of a sudden they would say: "Kane are you there?", mainly because I would be in the middle of sentences and just stop speaking, this is what they told me at least. So I tested this problem, every time it happened I would check to see if my PC was picking my mic input up or if it was just a Skype problem. I booted up Audacity and whenever my friends informed me that I just randomly stopped speaking in the middle of a sentence I would try recording something on audacity. However, this didn't produce any good results. The strange thing was, I could still hear my own voice through my headset whenever I couldn't be heard on Skype or be picked up on Audacity.

Anyway, the problem persisted and so I decided that it must be a headset problem. I returned them to Game UK for a full refund and purchased the Corsair Gaming H2100 headset, as my friend has the model before this one and says that they're really good. Now this headset had a whole load of problems. The mic quality was terrible, the mic would cut out again and I was really quiet even when I turned the mic level's to the highest point and turned off any 'Adjust automatically' settings. Now this could have been a dodgy headset this time, either way I returned this headset and decided to wait a couple of weeks for the release of the new Astro A50 Gen 2 headset for PC. The setup for these is exactly the same as the generation 1's with the mixamp, optical and USB cables. After about 3 days of use, the problem cropped back up again. I was stumped... I decided to try different USB ports on the back of my MOBO as well as my front USB ports, swapping between USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports. Still no luck. I couldn't see how it was the USB ports anyway as none of my other USB devices have intermittent problems, e.g. my keyboard or mouse. But the strangest part was that it surely couldn't be my brand new headset either?

In regards to playback and recording configuration, the headset is set as my default playback device for playback and default device/default communication device for recording. Another thing I thought it could be is my sound card having issues however, I emailed Astro with this problem and they weren't that much help in terms of suggesting things to do that I hadn't already tried but they did inform me that voice is carried through USB and the only cable plugged into my sound card is my optical audio cable which carries only my sound, which works all of the time. The cycle is infuriating. My headset also has all of the latest Astro drivers installed, for both the headset itself and the mixamp.

I'm am finding the problem to be extremely annoying and am hoping that someone might have a possible solution, or could suggest any tasks that I can attempt, to try and fix the problem. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
 

kanesmall

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Dec 15, 2014
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4,510


Thanks for your reply! Yep, I tried installing the latest motherboard drivers using MSI's Live Update 6 installer. It detected that I needed a few drivers and installed them but still no luck. Thanks anyway :)
 

YGrizzly

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Feb 12, 2015
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I have the exact same problem, my first pair of A50's had the random freezing issue and got them replaced under warranty that new headset had this mic cut out problem and again I send them to warranty. Now I got the new ps4 edition and the mic is cutting out again. I'm getting really frustraded because the headset works otherwise flawlessly but the mic is giving me a headache. I even tested mine on ps3 and ps4 chat and the same problem is there.

Now I have sent another message to the shop where I bought mine and hope that I can get refund so I can buy some other probably wired headset because I'm done with Astro. Great headset IF you happen to get working pair
 
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