Question What could be the cause of this sound issue?

[likeuknowwhatever]

Whenever I try listening to a song or watch a video there are disruptions in the sound or a weird sound as if there's a problem with the signal. It's very short disruptions(0.1 sec) that occur every 5 seconds or so, but it ruins the music experience.

At first I thought it was the headset's fault, a HyperX Cloud 2, so I bought a JBL headset, but it made no difference.
USB, 3.5mm, same result.
Then I tried it on the monitor's speakers and the disruptions could be heard from there as well.
Then I tested a DAC through USB - still the same result.

I began to suspect drivers, so I downloaded and installed the latest Realtek driver from the mobo's website. Still the same result.
Perhaps it's the BIOS? I updated the BIOS driver to the latest version through Q-Flash......same result.
Wait, perhaps it's corrupted system files? I formatted and then reinstalled Windows 10........same result.

Now I'm suspecting it's the motherboard, and it's hardware not software.
Mobo: X470 AORUS GAMING 7 WIFI

I googled for sound problems with this mobo, and found a Reddit thread where varios X470 owners complained about low sound from the rear panel.
I actually have this issue as well, which is why I only go with USB or the front panel. Clearly that one is the mobo's fault.
But this other one, with the noises or disruptions, appears to be unique to my case, and it's a far worse problem because I can't find a way to circumvent it. Not even the DAC did it.

I would've RMA'd the mobo immeditiately if it was new, but I bought it 2nd hand almost 2 months ago.
I'm not sure if it existed from the beginning - but I also didn't listen to music much in the first weeks. I only started noticing it after a few weeks.

Has anyone else had this issue? What could be causing it?



Specs in the signature

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

Try using latency monitor program listed here. Resplendence Software - Free Downloads Run the program in the background while you listen to your music and use your computer. Then check the program's report to see if it found any problems.

 

[likeuknowwhatever]

Try using latency monitor program listed here. Resplendence Software - Free Downloads Run the program in the background while you listen to your music and use your computer. Then check the program's report to see if it found any problems.

Thanks for replying!

I tried it on LatencyMon. It found issues before I even started playing music.

Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. At least one detected problem appears to be network related. In case you are using a WLAN adapter, try disabling it to get better results. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates.


dxgkrnl.sys and particularly storahci.sys appear to have the biggest latency issues.

I've tried these supposed solutions:

Switched to High Performance in Power Management.
Disabled CPU throttling.
Updated GPU driver.
Disabled IPv6
Disabled dynamic ticking

But the problem persists.

 

[likeuknowwhatever]

I've finally found a solution.
Storahci.sys indicated that it was related to the storage drives.
I have 4 SSDs and one 2.5 HDD connected to the mobo and PSU.
I can't get the HDD to work on this mobo for some reason, but I've been too lazy to unplug it.

The latency and audio issues vanished when I unplugged it.