Windows 10 - Audio keeps cutting out
Hello all, I own a SteelSeries Siberia v2 USB headset (which now has a Sennheiser plugged into to the USB sound card) which worked fine on my old Windows 8 PC. I have a new (well 6 months old) Windows 10 PC and since I built it I've had an issue where the sound periodically cuts out. When this happens typically video & games will also freeze or stutter terrible, I'll also get a periodic quiet "phut" sound come through the headphones when this happens.
To fix this I need to unplug the USB cable (this is easy as it can be unplugged at either end) and plug it back in again, then the sound comes straight back. I assumed this was a compatibility issue between this device and Windows 10. However... I just bought an Oculus Rift and exactly the same thing is happening to this as well so it appears to affect all sound cards (or at least all USB ones, the motherboard has an onboard realtek device but I never use it).
So, anyone have any ideas at what could be causing this? It doesn't appear to be specific to a single USB controller either as the Rift is on a different one from the Siberia.
Full Spec is:
MSI Gaming Pro Carbon X99a
Intel i7 6900k
32GB Ram
MSI 1080x2 SLI.
Windows 10 64 bit
I have the latest drivers for both the rift and siberia. I also recently updated motherboard drives and Windows is up to date with all critical patches.
Thanks all.
Posted Apr 8, 2017, 5:02 PM UTC · edited
Your motherboard could have gone bad. Also try to enable the Realtek one to see if it works
Using the onboard at the moment and so far it seems fine, although it can be very sporadic where it'll be fine for a day, but cut out loads the next. I'll need to use it for a couple of days to see if it works.
However I still need to fix the main problem because using the onboard isn't really an option for the Rift. It seems unlikely to me that the motherboard would be at fault. As I say the two USB sound cards are on different controllers and the motherboard itself has no idea that the data being passed to them is related to audio. All the rest of my USB devices work absolutely fine. I could consider getting a PCI-E USB hub to further rule out any motherboard issues.
Yeah, try that.