Realtek audio issues

[tybug099]

Hello. I recently grabbed a custom built PC and I've been having slight audio crackle issues with it. I'm almost 100% sure that it has to do with the realtek soundcard, but maybe someone else has another idea.

There are certain frequencies that seem to cause my audio to crackle, usually on the bassier end of the spectrum. I've tested it across two different devices. My main computer, which is a desktop, and my laptop. Both have realtek soundcards and I can get both to reproduce the same crackling from certain test audios with both speakers and differing headphones.

I've tried a bunch of different steps to try to fix it. I've tried setting my minimum processor state to 100, I've tried uninstalling the realtek audio driver and installing the base HD ones by windows, I even ordered a usb soundcard and tried operating through that. Nothing seems to help. All those suggestions that you can find with 5 seconds of googling that seem to be the only suggestions didn't work, so now I'm looking for windows 10 compatible realtek drivers. I've tried the ones that windows automatically installs, and even the ones from my motherboard's website. Any suggestions?

Just for reference, my motherboard is an Asus PRIME Z370-P. I've heard there are some audio issues with the asus prime line, but I haven't found a fix for that, either. Barring that, my laptop has a non asus motherboard, so I'm unsure if that's the issue here anyway. Sorry if this is in the wrong board.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Then I got nothing. Sorry man. I agree, Realtek as a company, sucks. I'd much rather have something that is a Creative labs or higher end professional product. You can't even download drivers directly from the Realtek website anymore like you used to be able to.

I have some unresolved issues with the Realtek SupremeFX sound on my Hero VIII as well and although I've gotten the majority of them worked out, I had to actually use the drivers from the Z270 Hero IX because none of the drivers for the Hero VIII would work right. I still don't have the ability to pipe input sound out through Bluetooth to my wireless headphones, and I used to be able to do it before the 1803 update, so I'm fairly sure it's a driver issue as well. I'm going to can the integrated sound and get a high end audio, something intended for audiophiles rather than gamers or mainstream users. I don't want one of the regular consumer audio chipsets because the majority of those are Realtek anyhow. There are better solutions out there to be had.

Even my very old Creative labs USB soundcard with the front panel breakout box works better than this thing, and it's half broken.

 

[jfalner]

What works with Windows 7 and 8.1, while SOMETIMES compatible, are often not. Even drivers that worked on previous Windows 10 builds often will NOT work when they release a new spring or fall update that changes the build version. Windows 10 has become an entirely different beast to deal with when it comes to changing hardware and driver support than with any previous iteration of the Windows operating system.

Seemed like a good thing at first, aside from some of the phone home, advertising and privacy issues, but it's beginning to become a major problem for a lot of us that don't like having to figure out how to make stuff work again every six months.

Worth noting as well, short of disabling the Windows update service altogether in services.msc, and that can create it's own problems, it's not even an option to turn off automatic updates in Windows 10 unless you have an educational, Pro or Enterprise version of the operating system.

Or, unless you have ZoneAlarm, firewalling on the router, or a heavily-edited hosts file—or some combination of the three. 😀

 

[Darkbreeze]

Those are not good options either because Windows will expend a significant amount of resources trying to repeatedly connect to the update servers regardless of whether the attempts are blocked or not. That will result in unwanted dips in performance, that don't ever go away except when you allow it through.

Windows doesn't stop trying to update just because it can't and there are some other detrimental problems from having it blocked such as not being able to use many of the search features properly since Cortana is tied into everything now including Windows update, search and pretty much everything else. I have Cortana completely killed off as much as possible, but I don't recommend doing that for the average user unless you fully understand what you will be giving up in order to do so.