Question Audio popping, crackling, static, cutting out, robotic, wireless headset

[jpgopro]

Hi, I have had this incredibly annoying issue that hopefully someone can help me with.
So about 3 months ago I did a complete PC upgrade and have had a persistent issue with my sound only when using my wireless headset (SteelSeries Nova Pro Wireless), I have also tried using the Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max and the Artics 9X and always have this issue. It does not happen all the time, it happens randomly and it is extremely frustrating. Audio pops, cracks and there's this robotic sound kind of hard to explain, it resembles what happens when you walk away and start losing connection (without walking away from the pc) this happens when listening to music, watching videos, and or playing games. This never happens when I use my speakers (which are connected with a standard 3.5 mm cable) , only while using these headphones. I have tried the headphones with other devices and did not have this issue. I went as far as replacing my Nova Pro Wireless 3 times thinking it was the headset but always have the same exact problem. Now I have tried every single option and followed every guide there is out there trying to solve audio issues, I have formatted my HD twice already and installed Windows 10, and Windows 11 fresh and always have the same issue. I have updated all the drivers, tried alternate drivers, tried disabling everything on the MB such as the WIFI controller, Bluetooth, network card, built-in audio, everything that I could disable I have done it. Now I have never had these issues prior to this upgrade and I'm thinking it could possibly be a hardware issue. Not sure about this but I'm thinking maybe the motherboard? It seems to me like an issue with the audio being through USB and when I listen through the speakers this does not happen. I'm listing my system parts showing what's new and changed and hopefully someone out there could shed some light on this issue. Thank You

ASUS Z590 ROG MAXIMUS XIII HERO LGA 1200 (NEW UPGRADE)
INTEL INTEL I7-11700K 3.60GHZ (NEW UPGRADE)
128 GB CORSAIR VENGEANCE DDR 3200 (64GB NEW UPGRADE)
ASUS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti ROG Strix (NEW UPGRADE)
ASUS ROG STRIX 850 Watt 80 Plus Gold ATX Fully Modular Power Supply (NEW UPGRADE)
NZXT KRAKEN Z63 LIQUID COOLER
SAMSUNG SSD 970 EVO 1TB NVME
WESTERN DIGITAL WD_BLACK SN850 2TB NVME (NEW UPGRADE)
SAMSUNG SSD 870 QVO 2TB (X2)
TOSHIBA DT01ACA300 3TB (SATA)
TOSHIBA HDWE140 4TB (SATA )
LOGITECH G915 KEYBOARD
LOGITECH G502 MOUSE
GYGABYTE M32U Monitor

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

ASUS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti ROG Strix (NEW UPGRADE)
ASUS ROG STRIX 850 Watt 80 Plus Gold ATX Fully Modular Power Supply (NEW UPGRADE)
You should've looked into a 1.2KW or higher wattage, reliably built PSU, due to the GPU having a high transient power spike.

By upgrade, what did you upgrade from? Where did you source the installers for the OS? As for your platform, did you manually install all relevant drivers with respect to those found on your motherboard maker's support site?

 

[Nighthawk117]

Do you have the same issue when connected to Bluetooth? How close is the USB receiver to the PC?

 

[jpgopro]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

ASUS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti ROG Strix (NEW UPGRADE)
ASUS ROG STRIX 850 Watt 80 Plus Gold ATX Fully Modular Power Supply (NEW UPGRADE)
You should've looked into a 1.2KW or higher wattage, reliably built PSU, due to the GPU having a high transient power spike.

By upgrade, what did you upgrade from? Where did you source the installers for the OS? As for your platform, did you manually install all relevant drivers with respect to those found on your motherboard maker's support site?

So I upgraded from an MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Edge with a 10th Gen i7, Power Color Red Devil RX 5700XT and for power supply a Corsair RM 750X. Motherboard, power supply, graphics card, case were all part of a barebone package I got from microcenter. Prior to this I had no issues whatsoever with my headsets. Installers for the OS straight from MS, all drivers installed using the drivers provided from Asus support site. Do you believe the PSU could be the cause? What PSU would you recommend for my system?

 

[jpgopro]

Do you have the same issue when connected to Bluetooth? How close is the USB receiver to the PC?

Haven't noticed the issue while connected with Bluetooth and the SteelSeries receiver is about 2 feet away from the PC but as for the Turtle Beach the dongle is plugged in directly to the PC

 

[Nighthawk117]

Haven't noticed the issue while connected with Bluetooth and the SteelSeries receiver is about 2 feet away from the PC but as for the Turtle Beach the dongle is plugged in directly to the PC

I've had crackling Bluetooth audio before due to interference. Moving the dongle or switching to 5Ghz Wifi fixed the issue, however 2ft away sounds more than sufficient.

Another issue worth investigating, I did have an issue when I first build my PC with crackling audio that was software related, if you have any motherboard audio software installed you might want to check if it's applying an EQ or any audio enhancements out of the box. If it is then you want to disable them, I think your board has a Realtek audio chip in it, check to see if you have something like Realtek Audio Console installed.

It probably won't apply it to the wireless headset, but just in case.

 

[jpgopro]

Yeah I already tried switching the WiFi and I don't have anything related to the onboard onboard sound installed. I actually completely disabled the onboard audio. I haven't had this issue prior to the upgrade that's why I'm thinking is related to the new hardware just can pinpoint which one

 

[Nighthawk117]

Do you have SteelSeries Engine installed? That apparently has sound enhancements. Disabling the onboard audio wouldn't help because wireless headphones will have their own built in audio chip, I was only thinking if something like Realtek software had applied some kind of EQ that was causing problems.

Have you tried a different USB port?