Audio distorted, tinny, sounds like its underwater

[targetpromo]

Mu audio playback all of a sudden sounds like its' under water. Is there a quick, east fix??

 

[fireberd]

Welcome to the Windows 8 forum.

Please fill in the "My System Specs". It helps us to try and help you.

Many sound modules, such as RealTek have options for Sound Effects. If you have this, one of the sound effects may have been enabled. With RealTek, there is an HD Audio Manager (found under Control Panel/Hardware and Sound). I don't know if or where for other brands.

 

[leonff7]

About to post the same question

Happened to me on 7 ult.
It was fine the first few weeks after upgrade to 8.1.
Then all of sudden it happen again. And it gets worse by the minute.
It used to happen once 4~5 days, and last only a few seconds.
Now, it's like every other 30 mins and last up to 10 mins.
Googleed, updated drivers (literally all of them, 07/2014), disabled enhancement, and yes, "do nothing" in communication. Reinstalled using newest driver, downgraded and upgraded. Delete user profiles, format C (it's SSD, this hurt like hell). Same result every time. Oh, changed speakers and motherboard (unless ASUS lied to me about RMA), the list kinda goes on.
So, haven't tried any advance stuff yet. Please, someone shed some light into this oblivion. Thank you.

 

[fireberd]

Do you have any sound add on, such as SoundBlaster Xfi MB? My Gigabyte Z77 motherboard came with the SoundBlaster software (enhancement to the basic RealTek sound). It has some enhancements, that I didn't need so I uninstalled it.

I wonder if its the fact that sound is always on a shared Interrupt (IRQ) with a higher priority device and that potentially can cause intermittent sound issues

I also have a second system with an ASUS AP8 Z77 LE Plus motherboard. I don't recall if there were any sound additions to that, but if there were I didn't install them. ASUS system is my recording studio system backup so it doesn't need all the bells and whisles.

 

[leonff7]

Nope. Not any. Would love to thou, since for some reason they don't work in 8. And creative moved on to Xfi MB3...
I've looked into interrupt thing, using LatencyMon, did pin point some drivers and services, but not sure what's the next step. Simply disabled them seems counter productive.

 

[fireberd]

I'm not sure that everything Latency Mon reports is really a problem. I ran that on my Recording Studio system, which works well and has not audio issue, and it reported problems. However, the DPC Latency Checker (not for Win 8) run on Windows 7 showed excellent latency and no spikes.

The RealTek site talks about power supplies causing many audio problems that can't be found otherwise. The only problem with that is the power supply would have to be replaced with a known good one to eliminate that as a cause.

 

[elbmek]

Have you been tweaking enhancements in Control Panel, sound ???? There is an underwater option there ?????

open sound and right click on speakers

As you can see, mine is set on City - its gives a great sound quality in games like Far Cry 2 and Silent Hunter 4

 

[leonff7]

I'm not sure that everything Latency Mon reports is really a problem. I ran that on my Recording Studio system, which works well and has not audio issue, and it reported problems. However, the DPC Latency Checker (not for Win 8) run on Windows 7 showed excellent latency and no spikes.

The RealTek site talks about power supplies causing many audio problems that can't be found otherwise. The only problem with that is the power supply would have to be replaced with a known good one to eliminate that as a cause.

That too is out of window. I upgraded my PSU from 700 to 850, along with the change to 8.1. Same everything else.

Have you been tweaking enhancements in Control Panel, sound ???? There is an underwater option there ?????

open sound and right click on speakers

As you can see, mine is set on City - its gives a great sound quality in games like Far Cry 2 and Silent Hunter 4

Not sure about the OP, but not for me. But I do enabled speaker fill and room correction. However, the problem have nothing to do with the enhancement for sure. Tried it either way, problem persist.

 

[elbmek]

thanks, all I can say is go into devices, sound and delete all drivers to do with audio, and reboot. I had to do that a few weeks ago, it worked.

 

[leonff7]

thanks, all I can say is go into devices, sound and delete all drivers to do with audio, and reboot. I had to do that a few weeks ago, it worked.

Yup, done that. Same as reinstall, only work for short period, then problem resurface.

 

[elbmek]

I had some speakers, with a woof thingy, and, when I went to 8.1 originally, it went funny, not working, only working when it wanted. I checked on net and found that my speakers software was 'not compatible' - shame really, they were good speakers.

Anyway I bought a new set online, not particularly expensive, and installed them, no problems now. Maybe, just maybe, its time to make the change????

Try also contacting the makers directly first???

 

[leonff7]

Unfortunately, I did that too. Friend got a new set of speaker out of box, borrow it to test. The problem is not as severe but still noticeable. Also, you're referring to usb speaker i presume? My set use 3.5 jack and separate power supply, it does not draw power from psu.

 

[elbmek]

No, mine are not usb but like yours - jackplug & sep power

mine are creative labs inspire T10's

 

[AdorkableHepHap]

If anyone is still having problems, I have a solution to how to fix the tinny sounds. ^_^
After I updated to Windows 8.1, I started having issues with how everything sounded on my computer due to Windows updating me to the wrong sound drivers. So, my brother showed me this solution and it has worked for me. Just a reminder though; the problem does come back, but whenever it does just do this process again and it'll fix it.

Right-click the audio icon on your task bar, then click 'Playback devices';


Then it should come up with the Sound options. This is where you should right-click the speakers you're using and click on Properties;


It should then come up with the properties of the speakers you're using, this is where you click on Advanced;


Once there, click the drop down menu for the different samples and test around with the different 24 bit ones and click the one that sounds best;


Once you pick the one you like, click on test and click Yes when it brings up 'Device In Use';


You can then click Apply, then Ok and it should fix it for a while. Hope this helps anyone who has the same problem. c: