PC Sound Card Questions

[low03tb]

Hey fellas, I'm trying to determine an issue with my HT/Music setup and one thing in the chain is my PC. I stream from my PC to my WDTV-Live, then to my Denon and on to the speakers. I'm wondering if it's possible that my sound card is bad or in need of an update (probably wouldn't 'fix' something if it was messed up just by an update, but figured I'd throw that in there). I have a built PC, but a friend built it for me. I know to go into the Device Manager, but from there I'm not sure how to check what the sound card is (not by my PC so it might just say) and most importantly, how to check if it's okay or has an issue.

My issue is I believe I'm getting a lot of high frequency attenuation. I've tried a new receiver and tried bypassing the WDTV-Live. I have an SPL meter to measure and when using 1/3 octave pink noise I go from 54dB's at 2kHz to 39dB's at 8kHz. That's quite a dip! That's 14dB's down over 2 octaves

Anyways, just figured I'd see if we had any PC wizzes here that could help. Thanks :beer:

 

[Tmatt142]

Is your sound card integrated?

 

[low03tb]

Yeah. Off the MOBO I'd assume

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8Z68V_PRO/

 

[Cvialp5901]

Hello, On the bottom right corner right click on the "speaker icon", select playback Devices and make sure the correct soundcard is selected. You can also delete the device in device manager, reboot the machine and if windows doesn't auto install the driver then go the Sound cards manufactures website and download and install the driver from them.

 

[hunterp]

You may want to look into a dedicated sound card. While the onboard sound is decent, you can run into exactly the issue you've described because the circuit pathways are subject to more electronic interference due to their proximity to other components, and the hardware itself, while decent, is basically packed into a very small space and just isn't as good as dedicated audio hardware. For your needs, you could look at something from Creative Labs, Turtle Beach or Asus, who all make consumer to pro-sumer level hardware. There are higher end boards targeted at professional musicians and audio engineers, but I doubt you need something like that or want to pay the price for it

 

[low03tb]

Hello, On the bottom right corner right click on the "speaker icon", select playback Devices and make sure the correct soundcard is selected. You can also delete the device in device manager, reboot the machine and if windows doesn't auto install the driver then go the Sound cards manufactures website and download and install the driver from them.

 

[Serpent]

uninstall nvidia sound drivers, and if you have a loaded mobo you should have an optical spdif port. Just get optical audio cables (male to male) and you should be able to connect that to any audio receiver.
I have my complete living room setup hooked on optical audio cables (ps3, comcast cable box, apple tv) on an old ass Sony 5.1 audio reciever (bought back in 2004).

 

[Cvialp5901]

The first thing i would do is to simply update the drivers. If you go to your Motherboard Manufactures website then you should be able to get them there. It appears you are on the right playback device especially if you hear sound through it, however (you can change over to the realtek deivce or the opticle port to test it out to see if it produces the same sound just make sure you have speakers plugged in to the correct port). if its the highs that are cutting out then you might have a sound card that is going out. Can you take a pic of how you have it wired?

 

[low03tb]

I updated the Realtek driver last night from the Asus support page. Not sure what it corrected, but I'm sure there's a list somewhere in the zip file I downloaded. I have a really long Optical cable I can try out tonight. That will bypass the WDTV (I can also plug it into the WDTV for another option). I'll run the same tones and see if there's any change.

There are no speakers plugged into any port on my PC. It's all done through WIFI using the WDTV-Live. The highs are not cutting out, but are supressed/recessed more than they should be. There are a lot of factors like the room response, cancellations/reflections (nulls/peaks), etc etc.....but that's not the point. I've taken measurements from 1' away and the speaker shouldn't be exhibiting this characteristic so something is at fault somewhere, whether that's the driver/crossover/AVR/WDTV/sound card/etc. I've tested with another AVR & bypassing the WDTV so those aren't at fault.