Onboard Audio Problems

Hi all,

I've done a good amount of research throughout these forums to find a problem like mine and couldn't find it, so please forgive me if you know of a thread. I figured I would post this here because I am using an ASUS P7Z68-V Pro board and my recent tests have led me to believe that it may be the onboard audio (RealTek HD Audio) that is causing the problems.

Some background - I build this PC about two months ago with the following notable specs:
ASUS P7Z68-V Pro mobo (Intel Rapid Storage Tech w/ and sdd enabled)
Intel i7 2600k (hyperthreading enabled)
EVGA Superclocked GTX 570 gpu (planning on getting another some time for SLI)
8gb G-Skill Ripjaw X RAM
Corsair TX850 psu

It is my first homebuilt computer and I'm happy that it works. The one reoccurring problem, however, is the audio. I first noticed this when I was watching some videos online and suddenly the "New Audio Device Has Been Detected" window popped up. I obviously had not just plugged in a new device, so it just came up out of the blue. The problem kept happening maybe once or twice an hour after that, which led me to turn off notifications for the action since it popped up during games. It was then that I noticed that, in conjunction with the "Detection," the computer would sort of hiccup. Graphics would briefly pause (for less than one second), and the sound cuts out for that brief moment as well. Again, this happens maybe twice an hour.

At first, I thought it was my speakers (M-Audio Studiophile AV-40's). I checked all the connections, checked the cords, checked the power. All was well there. So then I double checked the jacks by plugging into a couple of the jacks in the back panel (I was orginally plugged into the "Center" jack) as well as the front headphone jack. The problem persisted. I kept it plugged into the front jack. I then tested to see if the problem existed if I used headphones, and it did. So I reinstalled the audio drivers and unfortunately the problem was still there. I rechecked all the settings in the Realtek interface, created my own settings, and reset them to default and found no cure. I checked all of the cables connecting to the motherboard itself, replugging in most to make sure, and still the problem persisted. I double checked my "Default Devices" to make sure there was no conflict with HDMI and it seemed in the right order.

I can't think of anything else that I can try. Have any of you experienced anything like this? Do you know anything that I might be able to troubleshoot? Do you think that there is something wrong with the HD Audio pin on the mobo or something?

Any and all advice about this sound problem is much appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

I had a similar problem on another board. Try downloading and installing the latest RealTek drivers here.

Maybe you can uninstall the drivers, then use Driver-sweeper or an equivalent to get rid of all the entries. Re-start, and re-install the updated RealTek drivers.