Audio Popping/Stuttering, Crashes, and Playback Lag/Stuttering

jake2034

Reputable
Mar 23, 2014
6
0
4,510
Hi all, I'd like to thank you for your time and effort. Sorry if this landed in the wrong thread, but my issues seem connected but too different to put in something specific.

My problems happened a month ago (not sure if there's anything major that I did a month ago though, sorry there).

First to happen: I've been experiencing audio popping when playing a video game or watching Hulu/YouTube. (This happens between my optical output [headphones], and 3.5mm output [speakers], but hadn't noticed HDMI, will update that later.)

Next: I've been experiencing Audio/Video stuttering and lag when streaming, more so with sites like Netflix and Hulu.

Lastly: I've been experiencing crashes related to steam games that have caused software issues across my PC. (So a game crashes in Steam, but then: Steam won't open, my video players will load the video but refuse to begin playback, and closed windows leave their "image" on the desktop but aren't interact-able and only go away with Ctrl+Alt+Del).

These three issues go away temporarily (about a day or less) upon reboot.

My Rig:
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz
MB: MSI Z77A-GD80
Audio: Realtek® ALC898
GPU: GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST
Data: SSD Boot + HDD Storage (If it helps)

I've done some things to troubleshoot:
Remove malware that was even undetected by Avast!, this was causing CPU spikes (no luck).
Update all possible drivers (everything was up to date before problems).
Clean registries and defragment my HDD (why not?).

My internet research has given me nothing specific. So please help? Any tips or advice will be appreciated.

Sorry if this was "TL;DR"
 

jake2034

Reputable
Mar 23, 2014
6
0
4,510
Welp, I've got an update about the audio. The popping happens over HDMI (NVidia audio drivers) and Speakers/Headphones (Realtek drivers). So that rules out a small possibility of it being bad audio drivers.