Question sound low on Windows 10 ... CPU power cable issue?

[andrepartthree]

Hi guys sorry to be here with yet another problem .. I installed a new motherboard, ram and CPU a month ago and everything seemed to be working fine... although given it was my first ATX board build it was a real struggle getting the 4 plus 4 CPU power cable to reach into and plug into the motherboard I don't know if that's part of the problem ... I've ordered this extender cable just in case



https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0784J734R/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1



so hopefully this is the correct cable to extend a CPU power supply cable such that the 4 plus 4 pins (8 pins required total) will fit into my Asus TUF Gaming B550-PLUS AMD Chipset Socket AM4 ATX Motherboard (CPU is the AMD Ryzen™ 7 5700X ) .. if anyone could clarify if that's the correct extender cable that would be great (if it helps any the power supply is a " Thermaltake Toughpower Grand RGB 850w Fully Modular Power Supply 80 Plus Gold Certified + Riing 14 RGB Fan" )



A week ago I had the fright of my life when the PC would not power on .. I unplugged and replugged the power cable for the power supply, put the plug for the power cable into a different socket on my surge protector and turned the power switch on the back of the power supply on and off (did all 3 in a panic instead of testing after each step like I should have), and then the PC turned back on and has been powering on normally since then.



I made the mistake of installing the Asus Armory Crate, saw the reviews online stating that this is a terrible idea and it's a ton of bloatware (was looking for a way to turn off rgb lighting on attached devices like my usb keyboard ... found out afterwards I just needed to change the appropriate setting to "snooze" or something like that in the rgb lighting settings in the bios) and ran the armory crate uninstaller albeit with a lot of difficulties (got error messages stating DEP wouldn't let me run the uninstaller, after I temporarily turned that off got another error message saying my internet settings prevented one or more files from being run had to temporarily lower security settings), finally managed to uninstall armory crate but I'm not sure if this might have created a problem in the process? Although the sound was working fine after uninstalling armory crate so I'm inclined to think that's not the issue.



To be on the safe side dropped the ram speed from 3200 down to 2800 in BIOS (ram max speed is 3200 for my corsair vengeance two sticks of 16 GB ram for 32 GB ram total in the PC ) ... PC seemed to be running fine after that.



Then I turned the PC on today only to discover that while I at least still have sound the sound is a LOT lower than normal to the point where I can't hear say a quiet youtuber talking about how he solved some technical issue on his PC .. I followed all the troubleshooting steps mentioned here

12 Fixes When Volume Too Low on Windows 10

Is your volume too low on Windows 10? Maybe you’ve turned the volume way up and still can’t hear a thing? This is a common and infuriating problem with Windows [...]

helpdeskgeek.com

except for the 3rd party equalizer program because I'm a bit nervous about messing with windows settings (no idea if it does that or not) none of those tips helped.



Tried deleting the "high definition audio device" driver from device manager, rebooting the PC to let it reinstall, no luck there either.



Tried installing the sound drivers from the motherboard manufacturer's website both available drivers for Win 10 no luck there.



Tried reinstalling the chipset drivers I had successfully installed before from the motherboard manufacturer's website no luck there either



https://www.asus.com/motherboards-c...esk_download/?model2Name=TUF-GAMING-B550-PLUS



(I'm running Windows 10 , 64 bit)



I turned off the PC, tried pushing on the CPU cable that goes into the power "slot" on the motherboard to try and make sure it's seated firmly, disconnected and reconnected the sound cable that goes from the PC's case to the motherboard, no luck there either.



Also tried plugging my headphones (which is the device I use to listen to the PC not speakers) into the headphone jack on the back of the PC, no luck there.



Tried a different headphone that's known to work fine on another PC, no luck there either.



Anyone have any thoughts? I've heard reinstalling Windows might work and I'll do it if I have to although it would be a pain having to reinstall all my programs all over again... anyone think it could be that CPU cable and the struggle I had getting the CPU cable properly seated/inserted into the motherboard?



Thanks so much to anyone who reads this long wall of text and replies

 

[Lutfij]

hopefully this is the correct cable to extend a CPU power supply cable such that the 4 plus 4 pins (8 pins required total) will fit into my Asus TUF Gaming B550-PLUS AMD Chipset Socket AM4 ATX Motherboard (CPU is the AMD Ryzen™ 7 5700X ) .. if anyone could clarify if that's the correct extender cable that would be great (if it helps any the power supply is a " Thermaltake Toughpower Grand RGB 850w Fully Modular Power Supply 80 Plus Gold Certified + Riing 14 RGB Fan" )
Sleeved extension are just an extension, the hook up to the existing cables that come out of the PSU, meaning you're going to be fine. It's only when you need to source cables that are meant to hook directly to the PSU's modular end, whereby you need them to be the right model/pinout/version otherwise you can and will ruin your PSU.

Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:

What BIOS version are you currently on for your motherboard? Out of curiosity, where did you source the installer for your OS? Since you're trying to troubleshoot audio as well, include your audio output devices in the specs as well.

 

[andrepartthree]

(Slaps head).. oh my gosh you guys are going to (correctly) think I am the biggest idiot... although I am still wondering given the PC suddenly not turning on despite pressing the power switch a while back if it would be wise for me to go ahead and use that ATX power extender cable just to make sure it's not a problem with the "fit" of the power supply cable into the motherboard? Or just leave well enough alone since everything is currently working okay right now?

The reason I am the biggest idiot is.. well it looks like my ancient set of headphones crapped out on me, plugged in my backup set of headphones... and forgot there's a volume control setting dial on the new set of headphones which was cranked down to the "low" setting thus the low volume.. I spent probably 5 or 6 hours frantically troubleshooting convinced there was something wrong

(although in the course of all that unnecessary "troubleshooting" I am happy to report the Macrium Reflect 7 I was lucky enough to get a hold of still works as far as restoring a system image back into identical hardware ... come Black Friday I'm hoping the folks at Macrium will run their "4 licenses for $70" sale again (down from $140 for four licenses) at which point despite the expense of two kids in college I will absolutely buy that so I can restore Windows to different hardware if say my hard drive or motherboard or what not dies on me for some reason ... pleasantly shocked at how smoothly and quickly even the Macrium free version worked from a bootable usb drive (which was another great learning experience too, first time ever booting from a usb drive and restoring an image and it worked yay .. okay I'll stop before I sound like a commercial for Macrium but was astonished at how smoothly it worked in comparison to the Acronis True Image paid version I've been using all this time and am discontinuing since my year 2017 version won't work with Win 11 when it's upgrade time)

And I'm sorry Lutfij (thank you so much for responding so quickly to my post btw ) I should be posting my system info , another stupid mistake on my part (was all despondent over what I was sure was a motherboard hardware failure and not thinking clearly .. still worried about a possible MB issue I hope not).

CPU: AMD Ryzen™ 7 5700X

CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE CPU Air Cooler, Dual Tower 6 Heat Pipe,Dual 120mm TL-C12C

Motherboard: Asus TUF Gaming B550-PLUS AMD Chipset Socket AM4 ATX Motherboard

Ram: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2X16GB) DDR4 3200 (PC4-25600) C16 1.35VDesktop Memory - Black, 2 count (pack of 1)

SSD/HDD... Crucial MX500 , 1 TB is the "C" drive Windows is installed on but the other drives include the Windows 8 drive that the PC was originally running HP SSD M700 240GB 240.0 GB ... for data drives Seagate ST4000VX007-2DT166 4000.7 GB and Western Digital Red Plus drive WDC WD20EFZX-68AWUN0 2000.3 GB .. and a gaming ssd drive albeit an ancient one INTEL SSDSA2M080G2GN 80.0 GB (although I have games installed onto the C drive too)

GPU: ASUS GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Dual-Fan OC Edition VR Ready Dual HDMI DP 1.4 Gaming Graphics Card (DUAL-GTX1060-O6G)

PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower Grand RGB 850w Fully Modular Power Supply 80 Plus Gold Certified + Riing 14 RGB Fan

Chassis: Phanteks Pro M Tempered Glass Case, Black, PH-ES515PTG_BK (two 140 mm fans in the front, one 120 mm fan in the back, one 140 mm fan on the top but sadly not positioned over the CPU since the heatsink and placement of the CPU ATX power cables blocks the way far as having room to put a second fan there too)

OS; Windows 10

Monitor: ASUS VE278H 27" Full HD 1920x1080 2ms HDMI VGA Back-lit LED Monitor