Video slowly loses sync with audio

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armorra

May 27, 2018
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I'm having this problem that's making me lose my mind. I have not been able to find any solutions here on tomshardware or any other forums so I've decided to make my own thread.

Ever since I built this PC, I have been having this bizarre problem with videos slowly losing sync with audio. The problem occurs on Twitch and Youtube in both Chrome and Firefox and also happens with downloaded videos in VLC player. It seems like it just applies to any video player. The audio is absolutely fine, but the video plays in the slightest, almost unnoticeable slow motion and gradually loses sync with the audio more and more. Usually restarting the browser or the player refreshes it and it starts slowly losing sync again.

The problem most often occurs while I'm playing a game (not to the game, but to the other applications running on the other monitors). Very rarely has it started without me playing a game or streaming with OBS first.

Now, here comes the part that confuses me so much. This new PC I built includes the same EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 SC GPU I was using in my old PC, which didn't have this problem. But by switching my 1080 for a 970 in my new PC, the problems stopped. Putting my 1080 in another almost identical PC to my new one caused the same problem to occur in that PC. So naturally, I thought there was suddenly a problem with my 1080. I submitted my 1080 for a cross-shipment RMA, and the replacement 1080 I received produced the EXACT same problem. So is this a problem with this specific 1080 model and some other piece of hardware in my PC/the other PC that had the same problem? Both my new PC and that PC have the same CPU and very similar motherboards.

I have tried so many GPU driver versions, including the driver I last used in my old PC. And it seems like the problem goes away for a day or two after I perform a clean install of my GPU driver.

Things I have tried to fix the problem using my 1080:
Turning off hardware acceleration in Chrome
Updating all drivers
Flashing BIOS
Running all monitors at 60hz
Formatting Windows
Uninstalling Realtek Audio drivers
Setting all power settings to performance-based
Overclocking CPU

Rigs that have the problem occur with my 1080:
#1
CPU: Intel i7 8700k (stock)
Mobo: ASUS ROG STRIX z370-F
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR4 3200mhz
PSU: Seasonic Focus Plus 650W Gold

#2
CPU: Intel i7 8700k @4.9ghz
Mobo: ASUS ROG STRIX z370-G
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR4 2400mhz
PSU: Corsair CX600 600W

Rig that did NOT have the problem occur with my 1080:
CPU: Intel i7 4790k @4.5ghz
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-z87X-D3H
RAM: Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600MHz
PSU: Corsair CX600M 600W

All PCs are running Windows 10.

If anyone here has any suggestions or experience with this problem, I'd be so grateful. This problem is really driving me crazy.

 
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RememberThe5th

RememberThe5th

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Jul 30, 2014
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Try download K-Lite Codec pack.

Download DDU, go to safe mode "Shift+Restart" method -> https://www.digitalcitizen.life/4-ways-boot-safe-mode-windows-10
Then after unpacking the DDU do the "Clean+Restart" and after you are going to install the drivers (not automatic, download proper ones by selecting), and as you are going to install drivers go custom, uncheck the HDMI, 3D , HD audio and probably other stuff that you (sorry cannot remember).

Have you tried downloading sound drivers directly from Realtek? http://www.realtek.com.tw/DOWNLOADS/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=14&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3 (Try it im unsure about because the site is awful).

I think i saw your post long time ago
 
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armorra

May 27, 2018
11
1
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Thank you for your response.

I actually just downloaded and used DDU today with the safe mode method and reinstalled my GPU drivers without anything except the video driver selected. Haven't had the problem start happening yet, but as I said, it usually stops for a day or two after I do a clean GPU driver install.

I will try downloading the K-Lite Codec Pack and Realtek Audio Drivers directly from Realtek if DDU hasn't solved the problem. Will keep this thread updated.


This is actually my first thread, but I saw someone here who had pretty much the same problem but never found any solutions.
 
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armorra

May 27, 2018
11
1
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Uninstalling the drivers with DDU and safe mode worked for 4 days until I restarted my computer, then the problem came back immediately. I'm going to use DDU again and see if it fixes it again until the next restart.

This is a really weird issue. Could this be motherboard related?
 
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RememberThe5th

RememberThe5th

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The only thing that connects both pcs with issue is motherboard brand and model, but asus shouldnt have that issue at all.

Make system restore backup.
Try this "bcdedit /set disabledynamictick yes" in cmd ( in "" quotes).
Download LantecyMon and post results here with screenshot.
 
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marknicholson23

Commendable
Apr 18, 2018
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This issue occurs when the sample rates of audio and video are different. It happens in torrented films when someone has tampered with the audio and burnt it back onto the video at a different sample rate than the visual is playing back at so it seems in sync for a while and slowly drifts out. The same issue happens if you record on a camera at 48,000Hz and then record your audio at a different sample rate. Lower such as 44,100Hz it will start to lag behind the video and faster such as 64,000Hz the audio will run ahead of the video.

As far as I'm aware your drivers on your system do some of this work for you but there are settings than can be changed to have them be different. It maybe possible that your desktop configuration is running separate sample rates for audio and video but when they're in a game the game settings are set to the matching sample rates so your audio doesn't drift out. Does the sound and video drift out of sync when viewing cut scenes in games? When you're playing a game the sound files are really small and so they aren't usually long enough to drift out of sync due to sample rate issues - but in a cut scene the audio file is longer and is the same length as the video being viewed so will have time to drift out of sync if the sample rates are different.

Sample rate issues can be a nightmare to diagnose. All our system uses sample rates as it is all digital information and uses a 'system clock' which allows all your system to sync together and 'tick' at the same rate. I would send the same message to the manufacturers of your motherboard, GPU and sound card and pick their brains about this.
 
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armorra

May 27, 2018
11
1
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Wow, thanks for the detailed information. So why do you think the problem gets worse and most apparent while I'm running a game? For example, I was just playing Overwatch, and the stream video on my second monitor started going noticeably out of sync with the audio within 10 minutes. Now that I've closed Overwatch and restarted the browser, the stream has been running fine for over an hour without desyncing issues. So my desktop sample rates are changing when I'm playing a game to match the game sample rates or something? But it's not always limited to when a game is running. Sometimes it won't go away even after closing the game and restarting the application playing the video.
 
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marknicholson23

Commendable
Apr 18, 2018
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To hugely simplify how sample rate works imagine two horses in a race and you are watching this race from a side view. When each horse is running at the same speed alongside each other you just see one horse and are happy with this. This is your audio and video running at the same pace and seeming to be 1 thing rather than 2 separate things, which is how we want it to work all the time.

Now imagine we let one horse travel slightly faster than the other. For most of the race they seem to still be 1 but after a while they start to drift apart and you start to notice there are two separate things, not very noticeable at first, but the gap becomes increasingly noticeable as the race goes on until they are far enough apart to be seen as 2 different things that don't fit together anymore.

Each time you start an application that has audio and video within it you are starting the race from the beginning again with both horses side by side, appearing to be 1. The longer the race goes on the more they drift apart. Things like videos and streaming are long races. Within the gameplay part of a game there are many small races that aren't long enough to start to see one horse drift away from the other. Each time you fire a gun that race only lasts a second or so with both horses starting and finishing together as 1. In cut scenes in games its a video being played like on YouTube or from a video file, which is a long race.

If this was a perfect world you'd have the same issue happen all the time with the the desynchronising happening at the same time every time, being able to put it down to the second when the noticeable desynchronising happens. Because it's computers it makes the issue complex and hard to diagnose. I've had issues happen on a component of my computer that was caused by something you would never think of.

So I would advise contacting the suppliers of any of the components that could be causing the issue. Sample rate runs on GPUs, motherboards, sound cards and is running in softwares too like Windows and basically everything as the computer 'language' is all 0s and 1s and the sample rate is how many "words per second" in 0s and 1s it can talk in. Send the same message to ASUS, Gigabyte and Nvidia technical support whilst you await a solution on here as well. Actually since you issue is happening in Overwatch contact Blizzard - they were brilliant with helping me sort and issue I had with Overwatch not launching - turned out it was my Razer Synapse preventing Overwatch launching but they dug through all the data files on my system for me to find a fix and were very friendly about it too.

I'm sorry I can't be of more help in providing a solution, but hopefully have helped shed light on 1 of the possible causes.
 
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armorra

May 27, 2018
11
1
10
Thank you so much once again for the explanation. I understand what you are saying. I didn't mean I had problems with video/audio desync in Overwatch, I just have the video desync occur in other applications (Chrome, Firefox, Twitch, Youtube, VLC) while playing Overwatch and all other games. The games will run completely fine, but the other applications like Chrome and VLC running on the other monitors start lagging behind. However when not running a game, these applications seem to run fine most of the time for hours straight. It's usually only launching a game that triggers the problem. And the problem sometimes ceases as soon as I close the game, or it will remain until I reboot the PC completely.

I will contact both EVGA and ASUS about this and see what input they can give me. I really appreciate the information, it will help a lot in explaining my problem to the manufacturers.
 
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bdhamp

Aug 6, 2018
3
0
10


I have this exact problem and am starting to wonder whether it has something to do with the various Meltdown and Spectre fixes. Gaming with Twitch or Netflix running on the secondary monitor is how I first noticed it, but I have since seen it happen on just a single monitor if I've got two video streams running in separate windows for an extended period. That doesn't seem to be as predictable as starting up a game in the second monitor, but it has happened more than once.

My mobo is an ASRock Z270 Extreme 4 with an i7-7700K (tested at both 4.2 stock and 4.5 GHz). I built this system last fall and did not experience this issue at the time. After the Windows 10 update that fixed pieces of the M&S problem is when I noticed it the first time. When I installed a BIOS update that addressed it, the the de-synch got even worse. Two updates later, and it's not as bad but still there. The "tick clock" thing also seemed to fix it for a few days, and then it started up again. Same with fresh graphic driver installs.

I've done all the things you mentioned and what was mentioned here with the tick clock. A few other tricks here and there also didn't work. Another thread I found discussed the RealTek drivers not playing well with Windows 10, so I plugged in a Soundblaster discrete card and uninstalled the RealaTek. Didn't help.

So, I have nothing new to add, but wanted to let you know you're not alone and to subscribe to the thread I periodically search to see if there's been anything new.. It would make sense if a different mobo didn't have the problem since different manufacturers could have put out different BIOS fixes.
 
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RememberThe5th

RememberThe5th

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Jul 30, 2014
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Thats why I really, really hate windows 10, still isnt mature very well... Yeah some don't have issues at all. I could suggest to reinstall windows from stock, pick most important updates, without the "Meltdown and other issues", since you are not going to be hacked in any way, unless you download sketchy stuff and etc.
 
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kidjesus

Aug 28, 2018
1
0
10
I wanted to comment that I have also been having this exact same issue. I first starting noticing it after I installed a new EVGA GTX 1080Ti graphics card a few months ago. It's driving me crazy. I've also tried many of the same things that the OP has tried, to no avail. It happens on streaming videos through Netflix, or playing video files in VLC Player or Media Player Classic. Also, I have not been able to get through a single online gaming match in any game if it lasts more than 10 minutes or so; I seem to lose my internet connection for a split second and then I'm kicked from the game. This is also noticeable when downloading files from browsers; they will often disconnect randomly and not finish. LatencyMon indicated I have a major latency issue and I suspect that all of this is related, but I honestly don't know what else to do at this point. I built $5000 machine that is basically unusable for the reasons it was built.
 
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bdhamp

Aug 6, 2018
3
0
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I thought I'd add my latest efforts since I seem to have made some progress. I too have the EVGA 1080ti, and your comment gave me an idea.

I don't normally use the Precision X software that EVGA offers. I like their cards, but the software has given me issues in the past, and I avoid it out of habit. I use MSI's Afterburner instead. However, Afterburner apparently doesn't have an obvious method of forcing an EVGA card to operate at full "boost" speed. (I'm sure it's possible, but I'm not a hardcore overclocker with graphics cards, so I don't know the software well.) In the Precision X software there's the "KBOOST" button, bottom left in the default skin.

I decided to set this and see what happened. This is clearly not a fix, but I have seen vast improvement, and that has allowed me to notice something else. I can cause the de-synch to happen regularly by having Netflix or Twitch streaming, and then opening a separate browser window with two tabs and switching between them. I first noticed this shortly after I first tried the KBOOST thing. I played Conan Exiles for several hours while playing Netflix on the second monitor, and there was no desynch. I move the pointer our of the game, opened another Firefox window to check on a baseball game score and had two tabs open. When I switched between them, there was an instant desynch in the Netflix window. I eventually had to reboot the machine to stop it from happening regardless of what else I did or didn't do.

I still will experience a desynch even not doing this after seemingly random periods of time, but it's not constant or immediate as long as the boost clock is running full. Note that this does consume a lot more power and will increase idle temps. Mine only went up about 3 degrees C, but your mileage may vary if you try this.

I don't know what all this means, but there's something there.

 
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bdhamp

Aug 6, 2018
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I'm probably jinxing it, but I'm going to go ahead and ask.

Why does this work? I did this the day you posted, and I haven't had a de-synch since. I don't understand why this matters but am thankful nonetheless.
 
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