Question Asus Z170-A crackling audio - do I need to RMA my mobo?

[Umy___]

Hello!
My 2 year old custom built PC is causing me problems. The audio is crackling and distorted. I have automatically and manually updated my audio drivers and also tried different headsets. I still get a crackling sound. Especially when I listen to music with a heavy bass the distortion and crackling sounds become more noticeable.
I happened to have an Astro TR mixamp lying around. Plugging that in and connecting my earphones to the mixamp fixes the problem. However I don't want to "have to" use a mixamp in order to fix a problem that my relatively new PC is having.

I was thinking that maybe the sound card of my mobo is faulty. I'm no PC expert and hope I do not have to disassemble my entire PC and RMA my mobo

OS: Windows 10
Mobo: Asus Z170-A
GPU: GTX 1060OC

Thank you guys in advance!

 

[Quarkzquarkz]

Sometimes it's the speaker itself. You might want to double check to see if it's the speakers that is causing the strange static feedback. Sometimes these cheap devices aren't insulated correctly from RF noises and can pickup unwanted signals.

If you don't notice it when you use your headset then it might be a key culprit. If so try to replace the mixamp and see if that eliminates the crackling, good luck!

 

[Umy___]

Sometimes it's the speaker itself. You might want to double check to see if it's the speakers that is causing the strange static feedback. Sometimes these cheap devices aren't insulated correctly from RF noises and can pickup unwanted signals.

If you don't notice it when you use your headset then it might be a key culprit. If so try to replace the mixamp and see if that eliminates the crackling, good luck!

I don't use speakers. I only use earbuds/headsets. I connected them to the front and back audio port. Both times I got crackling audio. Using the mixamp with the same headsets I tried before did fix the problem. So I was thinking that maybe the soundcard of the mobo is faulty