ZOTAC GeForce GTX970 Extreme AMP Edition disables my audio while playing

[mayfly]

Ok, so it's been about 4 weeks since I built this rig. At first it was playing games just fine and I went to Australia for about a week and then came back home and noticed that when I was playing, the audio suddenly went super low volume and there was static/buzzy-ish sounds. I noticed that the card's LED lights changed from green to red(on load) more frequent than before. The temperature stays the same range between 35-45 degrees celcius just as it usually does 2 weeks ago. I'm not sure if it's the card's problem or something else. When it starts to randomly lower down the volume. The only way to fix it temporarily was to turn off the computer and let it sit by for half an hour or so. Restarting or turning it off and on again won't resolve the issue. Heck I even tried to reinstall the drivers. This problem did happen to me during the first week I built the pc and was fixed when I changed hard drives and OS from Windows 8 to Windows 7. Now switching hard drives won't work anymore. Could it be that I have a defective card all this time? My OS now is Windows 7 64-Bit

 

[i7Baby]

While you were away was your brother using it while he ate and drank?

 

[mayfly]

No I have no brother. Nobody was at home

 

[i7Baby]

Sounds like the PC is getting hot.

Post your complete and detailed build.

Download HWInfo and run Sensors. Post the results - usually 3 screenshots in TinyPic or similar. It'll show how your hardware is running - clocks, voltages, temps etc.

 

[mayfly]

Here's my full build:

CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3Ghz
RAM: 16 GB DDR3
GPU: GTX 970 4GB DDR5
HDD & SSD & DVD Drives: 1.Caviar Blue 1 TB 2. Samsung 840 EVO 256GB 3.HGST 1TB Laptop HDD 3. LITEON DVD Drive
PSU: Corsair CS650M 650W
Case: Corsair Carbide 400R

Screenshot of HWiNFO while system on idle:

http://i.imgur.com/TUkbzl9.png
http://i.imgur.com/HUxcgZ0.png
http://i.imgur.com/n6mqO7b.png
http://i.imgur.com/MGoSceo.png

screenshots are in order.

 

[i7Baby]

Your GPU is staying nice and cool. your PSU voltages are OK but your CPU is running hot - to 61C while Vcore was only at 1.1V

Were you gaming while Sensors was running?

Remove the covers of your PC (power off) and blow the dust out with compressed air.

Your CPU should be running at 40C max on idle and 60C max gaming. If still not, re-seat the cpu cooler (new paste). If still not OK, get a better cpu cooler eg cm hyper 212 evo

 

[mayfly]

Yeah, I was on idle, but are you sure this is causing the problem?

 

[i7Baby]

Yep

 

[Mousemonkey]

Yeah, I was on idle, but are you sure this is causing the problem?

If it turns out to be something else do let us know.

 

[mayfly]

I tried reapplying thermal paste and borrowed my brother's cooler for a while but the problem still persists.

 

[i7Baby]

Its still running hot? Or no audio?

Have you also checked your settings in Control Panel, Audio Manager?

 

[mayfly]

I uninstalled Realtek High Definition Audio and now the audio doesn't turn itself down anymore. I wonder why.
But thanks for the help anyways. So now it's using the windows default audio driver.