Sorry for asking, but somebody who understands sound on PC better than me could advice me the direction of my problem - could it be a sound card (=old motherboard) problem, could it be something with the speakers or is it a Windows 10 problem?
I have my good old PC running Windows 10. It is an old, but my fastest computer (Q6600) with an old motherboard with a built in solid sound card with SPDIF-OUT to which I have connected a sound system via optical cable. It has worked perfectly without any problems for many years, even after the installation of Windows 10 and many updates.
Recently, the sound started to be quite distorted - it is kind of a very annoying hissing sound in some moments when a person is speaking or a song is playing or the computer makes a warning sound. I tried a few things that could help to identify the direction of the problem:
I have my good old PC running Windows 10. It is an old, but my fastest computer (Q6600) with an old motherboard with a built in solid sound card with SPDIF-OUT to which I have connected a sound system via optical cable. It has worked perfectly without any problems for many years, even after the installation of Windows 10 and many updates.
Recently, the sound started to be quite distorted - it is kind of a very annoying hissing sound in some moments when a person is speaking or a song is playing or the computer makes a warning sound. I tried a few things that could help to identify the direction of the problem:
- When I set the speakers to very loud and set the volume in the PC stream to very low, the sound is perfect without any problem.
- When I set the speakers to very silent and set the volume in the PC stream to very loud, the distortions and hissing sounds are terrible.
- Both 1 and 2 applies to both SPDIF optical cable connection of the speakers with the sound card and SPDIF coaxial cable connection of the speakers with the sound card.
- When I connect the sound card via a normal jack (sound out) audio cable (not SPDIF) to another speakers, the sound is perfect even at very loud volume in the PC.
- Does 1 mean that the speakers are OK?
- Does 3 mean (two different types of cables) that the cables are OK?
- I am afraid, it will be the old motherboard with the built in solid sound card, but all the problems seem to have started after a major update of Windows 10 yesterday, so could it have something to do just with Windows? I tried to update the sound driver, but it did not help.