# Xonar Essense stx Random LOUD high pitched Ringing Noise?



## WaveRider69

My xonar will ocassionally  out of nowhere just start this incredibly loud high pitched ringing noise and it won't stop until I reset the computer.  It's terrifying because I'm afraid of it damaging my ears it's so loud.  It happens about once a week probably about 4 times now.
   
  What could cause this, how to prevent it, & is this a common prob?
   
  Also for a duration of 1 second with phones on could this damage my ears?
   
  please help
   
  Thanks
   
   
   
  My setup is
   
  xonar essense stx
  pci 100mhz
  windows 7 ultimate x64
   
  winamp newest with kernal streaming output, allow 24 bit & dithering.
   
  windows control panel is set at 24 bit 48000.  prob was still the same when it was at 44100.
   
  xonar audio center set at 48000 2 channel with dolby headphone & 7.1 & EQ.
  headphone amp high gain +12db
   
  using headphone out on back of card to ATH-AD700's.


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## Hybrys

It's a problem with your drivers.  I'd suggest uninstalling the drivers, rebooting, and reinstalling the drivers.
   
  Also, I'd suggest moving to WASAPI when you're on Vista/Win7.  I didn't even think KS worked in Vista/Win7.
   
  As for damage to your ear drums, there's not much that can do any permanent damage in 1sec.  5 seconds, and that's easier...


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## WaveRider69

AHH that's so good to know it's not the card, OK I'll do all of that right now cool thanks a ton man!


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## Hybrys

Quote: 





waverider69 said:


> AHH that's so good to know it's not the card, OK I'll do all of that right now cool thanks a ton man!


 

 It still might be!  But, the chances are it's an audio stream error in the drivers.  You hear similar things if a game crashes and doesn't close the stream, you hear that one sound repeated.


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## WaveRider69

Yeah it's like that, when it happens it's always right when I click something that initiates a sound so that makes good sense.    Man these WASAPI drivers sound better, it seems a bit warmer, fuller, & more alive.  I'm also able to go to extra high gain and crank it way up without distortion.  Awesome!   This should do the trick guess I'll find out in the coming week haha


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## extrabigmehdi

Just got today the exact same problem using wasapi, might be the stupid gx mode that I've enabled.


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## taiyoyuden

I think I get this every now and then too. It's so frightening that my heart is racing for at least an hour.
   
  LALALAAALA!! BILLIE JEAN, lalalaa!!  BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP, ah!!!!!!!!!!!!!
   
  But the difference is, I don't change any of the settings ever. Also I use it exclusively with foobar2k/wasapi, and another card as the default.


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## fufula

Happened to me a few times as well, with two different driver versions. One time I wasn't playing any music at the time it happened, just had my headphones on, it came completely out of nowhere and scared the crap out of me. The difference is, I have the Essence ST, I'm connecting the headphones through the RCA out, and in my case the noise only lasts for a couple of seconds and then goes away.
   
  Have any of you done any opamp upgrades?


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## extrabigmehdi

Well, I've updated to the latest driver, I  hope it makes a difference. I never got the problem while using speakers


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## fufula

Bump. Any of you still experiencing this? I know it's rare, but it's been a while.
   
  I tried several different driver versions, both unofficial and official, always making sure that the previous installed version's been purged from the system thoroughly. I'm currently using the latest stable official release, Essence ST, Windows 7 64-bit, RCA out. I also went back to my previous opamp setup, 2xLME49720 instead of 2xLME49860s.
   
  And yet, it happened to me again today. Thankfully I didn't have my headphones on at the time and managed to stop the noise by simply playing some music using uLilith. I'm seriously considering getting rid of the card; last thing I need is ear damage while sitting at my computer.


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## taiyoyuden

Do you have a headphone amp? I think it happened to me once after I got a headphone amp, and the noise wasn't loud at all when it happened. I have 2 sound cards and suspect crosstalk might be the problem but I am no expert.


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## fufula

No amp and the onboard sound card is disabled through the bios.
   
  There are at least two threads about this issue on the official ASUS support forums, though, as expected, no actual support has been provided so far.
   
  http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&id=20090222084608127&board_id=21&model=Xonar%20Essence%20STX&page=1
  http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20110101010416253&SLanguage=en-us&board_id=21&model=Xonar%20Essence%20ST&page=1


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## gurubhai

It happens with some opamps.
  I have had the same issue with LME49720HA & opa1611 in i/v position but never with others.


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## extrabigmehdi

It might be linked to wasapi, or  asio mode ?
  Did people experiment the "high pitched" noise  problem when using "regular mode" ?


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## holden4th

If  my experience is anything to go by it's not the card but the OS - specifically W7 64 bit. There are so many stories out there about sound issues with this OS when using either a USB DAC or soundcard running direct digital streaming such as Kernel Streaming. From what I can gather (and backed up by two of the posts here (#8 and #10) it can be generated by somrthing as simple as a mouse click). My experience again tells me that this is possibly caused by the way that the OS handle its power issues and something that MS has included in the 64 bit version of W7 to give a more 'greener' power consumption can cause these issues. However, nobody has directly identified what the specific cause is. With that in mind you might want to try this.
   
  Go to the "Power Options' on your control panel and turn off any power saving settings whatsoever. You can find this in the guide below
   
http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/downloads/Windows_7_Optimization_Guide.pdf
   
  It might make all the difference.
   
  Good luck


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## extrabigmehdi

Quote: 





holden4th said:


> If  my experience is anything to go by it's not the card but the OS - specifically W7 64 bit. There are so many stories out there about sound issues with this OS when using either a USB DAC or soundcard running direct digital streaming such as Kernel Streaming. From what I can gather (and backed up by two of the posts here (#8 and #10) it can be generated by somrthing as simple as a mouse click). My experience again tells me that this is possibly caused by the way that the OS handle its power issues and something that MS has included in the 64 bit version of W7 to give a more 'greener' power consumption can cause these issues. However, nobody has directly identified what the specific cause is. With that in mind you might want to try this.
> 
> Go to the "Power Options' on your control panel and turn off any power saving settings whatsoever. You can find this in the guide below
> 
> ...


 
   
  Yeah, I  use 64 bit version of win 7, but I  don't have a problem with power  saving.
  The last time I  got the awful screeching, it was while enabling / disabling some dsp inside foobar, in order to compare the difference.
  The good news  is,  if I  become deaf, my wallet would feel  better.


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## Fakeyfakerson

I've had this problem too. Windows 7 x64. I sent it in to asus for repairs and they sent it back after a few days, but according to their site they didn't actually repair anything, I don't think. Hasn't happened in the month or two I've been using it since. The only thing I did differently was not screw in the metal rear panel connector to my case. I noticed that in order to fit the screw in and secure the card in place that I had to press it down which made the card move slightly in the pci-e slot. This time I just put it right in the pci-e slot without screwing it in, not sure if that has what stopped the issue or not, time will tell if it happens again. I do know that if it keeps happening I will sell it in a heartbeat and make do with an external DAC/amp combo. Not going to risk permanent damage to my headphones or ears.


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## extrabigmehdi

Quote: 





fakeyfakerson said:


> I've had this problem too. Windows 7 x64. I sent it in to asus for repairs and they sent it back after a few days, but according to their site they didn't actually repair anything, I don't think. Hasn't happened in the month or two I've been using it since. The only thing I did differently was not screw in the metal rear panel connector to my case. I noticed that in order to fit the screw in and secure the card in place that I had to press it down which made the card move slightly in the pci-e slot. This time I just put it right in the pci-e slot without screwing it in, not sure if that has what stopped the issue or not, time will tell if it happens again. I do know that if it keeps happening I will sell it in a heartbeat and make do with an external DAC/amp combo. Not going to risk permanent damage to my headphones or ears.


 

 Do you use wasapi or asio ? I  highly doubt  this story of screw will change anything.


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## Fakeyfakerson

I use neither asio or wasapi. Yea I'm not sure about the screw either but we'll see.


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## fufula

I don't think it's got anything to do with ASIO or WASAPI. It never happened when an application held exclusive access to the card, either through ASIO or WASAPI, at least in my case. holden4th might be onto something here. I'm pretty sure that the problems started when I switched from Windows XP to Windows 7 x64.
   
  I've recently rolled back to an older driver version and haven't experienced any noises in a while now (crosses fingers). I'm using the UNi Xonar 1793 v1.31 one.


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## fufula

And again. I was just browsing the web using Opera, clicked some button on an HTML5 website, no sounds were being played by anything on the computer... I had uLilith (ASIO) idling in the background, the noise went away as soon as I clicked play.


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## Fakeyfakerson

Maybe try what reply #24 suggests?
   
  http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&id=20090222084608127&board_id=21&model=Xonar%20Essence%20STX&page=3&count=49
   
   
  Out of curiosity, is the cable from your PSU hooked up only to your STX and nothing else or is there are stuff along the same cable that's plugged in?


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## fufula

Nothing else is powered by the cable attached to my ST. I just modded and installed the Auzentech drivers, so far so good.
   
  edit:
   
  Some of you might find it interesting that the newest driver version available from Auzentech is 7.12.8.1796; the one from ASUS is 7.12.8.1794. ASIO seems to be the same version (2.0.0.7).
   
  The driver comes with the default C-Media Oxygen HD Audio control panel which seems to offer the same kind of options the one from ASUS does. The only thing that I've noticed is different is that you won't be able to change the gain setting if you're using the headphone out with higher impedance headphones.
   
  Modding the driver is pretty straightforward. Just follow the instructions in the aforementioned post. In case of ST the hardware ID is 835*D*1043.


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## veebz

Has anyone found a resolution to this that does not involve custom drivers?  Just happened to me for the first time today after a month of ownership, and my heart is still pounding.


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## fufula

From what I've read, it seems like this is a W7 issue, so going back to Windows XP would probably fix the problem as well. Other than that and (possibly) custom drivers, I don't think that there is a solution.
   
  I haven't had it happen since I installed the Auzentech drivers I modded myself (UNi Xonar ones don't help unfortunately,) so almost a month without any ringing noise and heart palpitations. I hope it stays this way...


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## fufula

Left the PC unattended for a while and it happened again just now. Looks like I'll be getting a new DAC for Christmas this year...


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## Axonn

And it seems like you guys just saved me some money. I was just about to buy this junk. I won't. Not until Asus comes up with a decent W7 x64 driver. Thanks God for this Forum.


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## extrabigmehdi

I think the problem of screeching might be related to a defective Ram.
  Recently I removed a stick of RAM because random problem occurred, recently my computer even refused to start.
  I think there's a bug when using two sticks of 2Gb, or it come from my motherboard, because memtest couldn't in the past detect anything.
  The ram I  use is from G-SKILL  (F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK).


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## knusperriegel

its not the ram is a bug in w7 driver of the card
  a guy in the asus forum talked to the customer service...
   
  http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&id=20090222084608127&board_id=21&model=Xonar%20Essence%20STX&page=7&count=72
   
   
   
  ANSWER FROM ASUS

 so after some mails i got an answer from asus about the problem

 1st there is no solution and
 2nd it is not a general problem, if it would be one many users would have reported this bug and send there card back but nobody did this


 REPORT THIS BUG TO ASUS WITH THE CONTACT FORM

 asus thinks only a few people have this problem
 and won't fix it
 they just say disable onboard sound (and if u already have)  try older drivers....

 so there is no help and no fix from asus
 and there will be no fix for it !!!!!!!!!!
 unless ALL people here will report the bug
 but i know that nobody will so live with the bug and risc your headphones

 the only thing u can do is use another soundcard or go back to xp


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## raja

I am looping this to HQ. Can you please try the following:
   
   
   [size=10pt]Disable "SPDIF Passthrough Device" in the control panel[/size]

   [size=10pt]Disable GX[/size]

   
   
  Let me know if that helps. If it does not, then will likely need full config details including all relevant driver and software info.
   
  -Raja


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## fufula

Quote: 





raja said:


> I am looping this to HQ. Can you please try the following:
> 
> 
> [size=10pt]Disable "SPDIF Passthrough Device" in the control panel[/size]
> ...


 


   
  I keep both disabled at all times. The problem persists.
   
  Also, I've always had the onboard sound disabled and rolling back to older driver versions does not help.


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## raja

Quote: 





fufula said:


> I keep both disabled at all times. The problem persists.
> 
> Also, I've always had the onboard sound disabled and rolling back to older driver versions does not help.


 

 Okay, can you fill this out and I will relay it to ASUS HQ:
   
   
   
   
  Power supply:
  Motherboard:
  BIOS:
  CPU:
  Memory (exact model):
  Do you overclock? no/yes
  Graphics:
  Graphics driver:
  Soundcard: 
  Sound driver:
  Other cards + drivers:
  Peripherals + drivers:
  OS:
  Playback software (when it happened):
  Which audio port do you use? headphones/speakers
  Are you able to consistently reproduce the issue? no/yes (explain how)


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## fufula

Thanks. Here goes:
   
   
   
  Power supply: Corsair CMPSU-650TXEU
  Motherboard: ASUS P7P55D-E
  BIOS: preinstalled, I haven't updated it
  CPU: Intel Core i3 550, 3.2GHz, 4MB, LGA 1156
  Memory (exact model): Patriot DDR3 4GB 1333MHZ 2X2GB CL9 GAMING ELK INTEL
  Do you overclock? no
  Graphics: EVGA GT240
  Graphics driver: 290.36
  Soundcard: ASUS Xonar Essence ST
  Sound driver: I've tried all available official driver releases from ASUS; currently running 7.12.8.1796 customs I made based on the ones from Auzentech
  Other cards + drivers: none
  Peripherals + drivers: keyboard / CM Storm Spawn mouse that uses default drivers
  OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64 w/SP1 and all important Windows Update updates applied
  Playback software (when it happened): it doesn't happen during playback; it happens at random when the sound card is idle
  Which audio port do you use? speakers, but I've tried running through headphones for a little while and it happened on that port as well
  Are you able to consistently reproduce the issue? no, it's completely random


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## extrabigmehdi

Rare screeching for me, and I don't use currently the computer.
  In my case, this might be linked to RAM.
   
  If this could help:
   
  Power supply : corsair hx620w
 Motherboard: GA-X48-DQ6
 CPU: E8400
 Memory: DDR2  F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK & F2-8500CL5D-2GBPK
 Found recently stability problems linked to RAM.
 Memtest was never able to detect anything.
 Removed a stick of Ram of 2gb, everything seems better
 (downgraded from 6gb to 4gb)
 GPU: msi zilent 8800 gt
 overclock: never because of stability problems
 I got with ram
 OS: win7 x64 sp1


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## raja

The DRAM instability may be due to using two separate kits. Likely need to adjust memory controller voltages and relax memory timings to cure that.
  Quote: 





extrabigmehdi said:


> Rare screeching for me, and I don't use currently the computer.
> In my case, this might be linked to RAM.
> 
> If this could help:
> ...


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## extrabigmehdi

Quote: 





raja said:


> The DRAM instability may be due to using two separate kits. Likely need to adjust memory controller voltages and relax memory timings to cure that.


 
  I tried many time, until I was tired. One day, the computer just refused to start, and I removed one  stick of RAM.
  But when I think about it , perphaps I should have removed 2 sticks of 1gb, instead of one stick of 2gb.


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## yehuda

Hi raja,
   
  This just happened again today as I was browsing Windows Explorer and clicked on a folder. I'm adding my details.
   
Power supply: Seasonic SS-400ET
Motherboard: Intel DH67BL
BIOS: 5/23/11
CPU: Core i3-2100
Memory (exact model): 2 x Kingston DDR3-1600 KHX1600C9D3B1/4G
Do you overclock? no
Graphics: integrated
Graphics driver: 8.15.10.2219
Soundcard: Xonar Essence STX 
Sound driver: 7.12.8.1794
Peripherals + drivers: TP-Link USB Wireless Card WN722N + driver v2.0.0.32
OS: Win 7-64 SP1
Which audio port do you use? Speakers only
Are you able to consistently reproduce the issue? Completely random


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## yehuda

Here's something interesting. The noise went away somehow without me having to reboot. Not sure how. I turned off the speakers and collected driver information. When I turned them on again, there was no noise and the card was working. I ran CPU-Z v1.60 among other programs.


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## extrabigmehdi

Quote: 





yehuda said:


> Here's something interesting. The noise went away somehow without me having to reboot. Not sure how. I turned off the speakers and collected driver information. When I turned them on again, there was no noise and the card was working. I ran CPU-Z v1.60 among other programs.


 

 You mean you got problem with speakers ? Usually it's with headphones only.


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## yehuda

I currently use speakers with this card which are connected to the 2 x RCA ports on the back.


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## yehuda

Quote: 





> Originally Posted by *raja* /img/forum/go_quote.gif
> 
> [size=10pt]Disable "SPDIF Passthrough Device" in the control panel[/size]
> [size=10pt]Disable GX[/size]


 


  Both were disabled today as the issue happened. Thanks.


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## TennisNoob

Wow I joined this forum becuase i am sick and tired of asus support and watching asus reject crap 
   
  I have asus everything and im literally getting rid of them when i can
   
  their support is AWFUL and their response is we don't care, level 1 is nice but can't do anything or has any knowledge
  level 2 thinks their the crap
   
   
  Long story short, Im stuck
   
  I have the xonar essence STX connected with the duo rcas to 3.5 logitech speakers, than i have a hd 650 tagged along. 

 Please a dvise.


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## gardener

Power supply: Coolermaster 500w green (now have a Coolermaster GX450w 80)
  Motherboard: P5N-E SLI
  BIOS: 1406
  CPU: E7500
  Memory (exact model): Geil DDR2 800 1gb x 4 CL4-4-4
  Do you overclock? no/yes No
  Graphics: 1 of Nvidia GTS 250
  Graphics driver: 8.17.12.8562
  Soundcard: STX
  Sound driver: 7.12.8.1794
  Other cards + drivers:
  Peripherals + drivers:
  OS: Win 7 Pro 64 bit SP1
  Playback software (when it happened): doesn't happen during play back usually happens if i click on something at random
  Which audio port do you use? headphones/speakers. Both
  Are you able to consistently reproduce the issue? no/yes (explain how) No just happens at random. But has not happened so far with new PSU Coolermaster GX450 80, had this new psu a few weeks, but also prior to this i could go weeks/months without the random squeel noise happening after i click on something.


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## bcschmerker4

I have some new information about this issue.  I get the same "screech" on my Asus CM1630-06 upgraded with EAH6850DC/2DIS/1GD5 video and Essence STX audio (plus an Antec TP-750 Blue to ensure plenty of power to all components thereof).  However, having a LinUX box equipped with a Creative Laboratories SB0350 for audio preprocessing for live-video activities elsewhere, I was able to see where the problem presents itself in the STX.
   
  Specifically, I have the S/P-DIF Passthrough Device active in order to send the CM1630's PCM to the LinUX box via the digital input of the latter's Creative Laboratories SB0250 I/O Drive.  When the CM1630 howls (Headphone, 2 Speakers, or Front Panel, whichever analog output is active), the LinUX box doesn't.  That means the problem is most likely isolated to the Xonar's analog output section, or at worst the DAC current drive of the AV100 audio chip; I just don't have the necessary tools to zero in on the exact source.


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## WaveRider69

For you guys that are still having this issue, I recommend to sell the card.
   
  I went though a few external DAC/AMPs after that and settled on an Audio-GD FUN.  For the same price as the Essence you can get an Audio-GD NFB-12.  These DAC/AMPs are to the Essence as a Lamborghini is to a Ford Focus.  I'll never go back
   
  And to Asus, I'll never buy one of your cards again.  Even if this issue is permanently resolved, I would rather get punched in the stomach by Mike Tyson than even have a chance of hearing that god awful sound again.
   
  Before purchasing that Xonar card I was able to hear frequencies up to 19k in both ears without a problem.  Now my left ear I am limited to 17k.  I am contemplating filing a lawsuit for hearing damage.
   
  I don't remember if the noise came from both channels or one channel, what is it for you guys both left and right or just one?


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## extrabigmehdi

Quote: 





waverider69 said:


> Before purchasing that Xonar card I was able to hear frequencies up to 19k in both ears without a problem.  Now my left ear I am limited to 17k.  I am contemplating filing a lawsuit for hearing damage.


 
  You can't avoid hearing loss with time. I'm no sure how loud was the high pitched sound for you, but I think not enough to induce problems. You might have more loss by going to a night club or a concert.


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## WaveRider69

Quote: 





extrabigmehdi said:


> You can't avoid hearing loss with time. I'm no sure how loud was the high pitched sound for you, but I think not enough to induce problems. You might have more loss by going to a night club or a concert.


 
   
  I would feel much better if that were really the case, at least I would know I did it to myself instead of feeling "cheated".
   
  What gets me though is the one ear thing.  If it were normal hearing loss wouldn't both of my ears be effected?  Or is this common with one ear?
   
  The tone was excruciating, having had the card hooked up to low ohm already high pitched ATH-AD700s at the time.  It was 1 second each time before I managed to get the cans off my head, no more than probably 7-10 different times before I got rid of the card.  Not very many at all.  I'm a guy that can withstand very loud music at clubs etc and it doesn't bother me etc, but the tone that card made would have my ears sensitive and hurting for a good day or so after.


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## extrabigmehdi

Quote: 





waverider69 said:


> If it were normal hearing loss wouldn't both of my ears be effected?


 
  I'm not a specialist , but I've noticed it's not usual that someone doesn't hear same way in both ears.
  I was for instance surprised , to learn it was the case of the of reviewer from anythingbutipod.com website.
  How old are you ? I find that listening up to 17khz is still pretty good.
  You can see the results in that poll after  voting (I  suggest you redo the test with the samples provided):
 http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=93733&st=75

 Quote: 





> but the tone that card made would have my ears sensitive and hurting for a good day or so after.


 
  You mean you got some pain on the ears, a day after hearing the loud high pitched sound ?
  That was definitely not my case. I  was frightened at best.


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## bcschmerker4

*New question for the field directly related to this Topic:*  I recently found that Windows audio events can in fact start and/or stop the howling on the analog-output side with its attendant out-of-control gain, but haven't much parallel information from the OS to help triage this issue.  Most (but not necessarily all) of the times that I encountered the howling, I had some page open in Mozilla® Firefox 6-up that required the Adobe® Flash Player plug-in (now itself under scrutiny for breaking HTML pages across Websites that use Macromedia® shockwave-flash IFrames and related software architecture).
  
  What exceptions are there to Flash Player activity in the incidence of the high-pitched howl?  These will be needed to triage the howling issue, as it hasn't been reproduced on a consistent basis at the software-vendor laboratories.


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## log4

hello....
   
  having this soundcart, ST Version, since 4 weeks, had this noise 3 times on hp and line out, once while clicking in mail client, twice while clicking on files in windows explorer. i could turn the noise off, through lower the volumemixer to zero but only in the task bar volume from windows.
   
   
  last noise- time i checked the windows protocols (event viewer) and at the approximate time code my  "Adobe Flash Player Update Service"  was starting and stopping within 1 second.
   
  silence now since 10 days, changed energy options in w7 and not using hf mode but i'm waiting (btw my headphone is scratching a bit since the last noise event   )
   
  i contacted asus, they said i'm the first person with that issue.... yep


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## raja

I reported it to HQ but they have not been able to replicate thus far due to the random nature of the problem.


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## extrabigmehdi

I got recently the bug , and decided that is was enough.
  It was weird, the bug appeared while I was not even playing music, but just opening explorer, and the windows events  sounds were disabled through the volume mixer.
   
  So I installed the driver from the Auzentech X-meridian 2G.
 I tried the unified xonar driver, too, but I just got too much problem with it, the switcher between headphone & speakers didn't work properly.
 After trying different derivers, the unified driver refused to re-install anyway.
  Also the unified driver sounded less clean to me, unless it's placebo I  don't know.
   
  To install the Auzentech X-meridian 2G driver, I  got to modify it first. Here's how I've done it:
  
  1) Search for all the files CMPCIP0.INF
  Edit each of them, and do these changes:
 Under [C-Media] paste this:
 %CMI8788.DeviceDesc%=CMPCI,    PCI\VEN_13F6&DEV_8788&SUBSYS_835C1043

 Under [C-Media.NTamd64] paste this:
 %CMI8788.DeviceDesc%=CMPCIX64,    PCI\VEN_13F6&DEV_8788&SUBSYS_835C1043

 2) Get the file cmudaxp.ini from the regular xonar stx driver.
  Replace all the cmudaxp.ini files from Auzentech X-meridian 2G driver , by the one from the xonar stx.
   
  3) Now off course uninstall the xonar stx driver, before installing the Auzentech X-meridian 2G driver.

 4) ensure after install that the "xear 3d" effects are disabled (gray icon, not blue). At least if you want unmodified sound.

 According to a certain user vaak, the random bug disappear if you use the auzentech driver, instead of the asus one.
 Source:
  http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&id=20090222084608127&board_id=21&model=Xonar%20Essence%20STX&page=3&count=78
   
   
  Now I'm wondering if I shouldn't have bought the Auzentech X-meridian 2G for my second soundcard ( I use two computer) instead of the xonar stx.
  According to a review from bit tech, the new card is not only more versatile, but also sound better than the xonar stx (why ???).
  http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/soundcards/2011/02/26/auzentech-x-meridian-7-1-2g-review/2
   
  Last remark: I liked better the interface on the xonar stx, and with the new interface I cannot plug anymore headphone on the front panel (it works on the back off course).
   
  Regarding the 3 modes for headphone impedance from asus driver , here's the solution by vaak:
   
  Quote: 





> Open the Oxygen HD Audio Center (blue/cyan Xear 3D icon in taskbar)
> On the bottom is where you select headphone/speakers and the Khz selection.
> To the right of that, click the speaker icon next to "Output device"
> You can amplify from -96 to +12 dB (where +12 dB was the 64-300 ohm one i believe from Asus).
> Amplify it until its comfortable.


----------



## fufula

Auzentech driver does NOT resolve the issue. I've had it happen with the modded drivers installed. And neither does the Unified Xonar driver btw.
   
  I wonder if it ever happens with cards that use the same chip from different manufacturers or if it's just an ASUS issue.


----------



## JackeShan

I've had this a couple of times as well. Seems like there is no fix to this yet..


----------



## extrabigmehdi

Quote: 





fufula said:


> Auzentech driver does NOT resolve the issue. I've had it happen with the modded drivers installed. And neither does the Unified Xonar driver btw.
> 
> I wonder if it ever happens with cards that use the same chip from different manufacturers or if it's just an ASUS issue.


 







 . Anyone already tried the HT Omega Claro HALO driver ?  It seem that soundcard use again the same sound processor by c-media.
  Optional: Do you you think I might damage the soundcard with this new driver experiment.
   
  Note: yeah the high pitched sound problem also exists on auzentech sound card, see this thread:
 http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=902668
   
  Also there's a lot of complain regarding creative x-fi cards, some saying it's just a basic irq conflict with usb ports:
 http://folding.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?p=1335104714
   
  Someone claimed that are minor issue with the ht claro (much less annoying, occasional buzzing):
 http://www.head-fi.org/products/ht-omega-eclaro-7-1-channel-pci-express-x1-sound-card/reviews
   
  Perhaps the problem is related to win 7 ?


----------



## fufula

It's most likely a Windows 7 (maybe Vista too) issue, yes. I doubt the Claro Halo driver is going to change anything. Last I checked they were using a much older driver version than the other manufacturers and they all get their drivers from C-Media, (sometimes) slap their frontend on it, add some additional options. In case this makes you wonder, no, rolling back to an old version isn't going to help either, so don't even bother.
   
  As it stands, getting rid of the card is the only sure way of making the problem go away.


----------



## extrabigmehdi

I  thought this hotfix from win 7 "might" help:
 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2653312
  There is a resampling  bug in win7, but I  don't see how this could lead to the high pitched sound.
   
  Perhaps there are other hotfix of the same kind ....


----------



## extrabigmehdi

I   didn't encountered the bug since I've installed the hotfix,  and I've been using my headphone a lot.
  I don't know how much I 'd have to wait to trigger again the bug, if it's still here


----------



## Agarvaen

Have other users tried the hotfix for win sound and does it work? I am interested in getting this card and would like to be sure it will work fine.


----------



## extrabigmehdi

Quote: 





agarvaen said:


> Have other users tried the hotfix for win sound and does it work? I am interested in getting this card and would like to be sure it will work fine.


 
  The bug is very rare for me. I  can use the card for many months, and then suddenly the problem. So this didn't discourage me for getting a second soundcard, as I  couldn't find better .


----------



## bcschmerker4

Quote: 





extrabigmehdi said:


> . Anyone already tried the HT Omega Claro HALO driver ?  It seem that soundcard use again the same sound processor by c-media.
> Optional: Do you you think I might damage the soundcard with this new driver experiment.
> 
> Note: yeah the high pitched sound problem also exists on auzentech sound card, see this thread:
> ...


 

 Well, _now_ I've reason so to suspect, as the 3 kHz howl is occurring as randomly as with my Asus® XONAR®, on chipsets other than C-Media® products.  Microsoft Corporation apparently discovered at least one issue with the Windows® 6.1 and 7.0 audio stack itself; the resample bug addressed in /KB/2653312 at Microsoft® Support (which resulted in the hotfix using C:\Windows\System32\WDMAud.drv 6.1.7601.21879 and/or C:\Windows\SysWOW64\WDMAud.drv 6.1.7601.21879)  is probably the tip of the iceberg.


----------



## WaveRider69

Does someone know of a hearing test where you can test ALL of the frequencies??
   
  I only found this one which tests 8k and up. http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2009/03/can-you-hear-this-hearing-test/
   
  Do you guys conclude the Xonar sound is around 3k????  Does that mean an extremely loud sound at 3k would hurt hearing of freqs at 3k and not the higher ones????
   
  Someone please let me know asap, thanks.
   
  Also are you guys getting the sound in both channels or just one???  I don't remember.


----------



## extrabigmehdi

No problem since I've Installed the win7 hotfix, and I've been using extensively my headphones.


----------



## Sandbo

Really need to know if this bug has been fixed.
   
  I am now using it with my Sennheiser HD600. To leverage the headphone I put it on the headphone jack and used the highest gain(I do find this setting the best in sq)........imagine what will happen if this bug strikes me.......probably I am going to be deaf and the headphone will be blown.
   
  Desperately need your confirmation on the fix


----------



## extrabigmehdi

Quote: 





sandbo said:


> .probably I am going to be deaf and the headphone will be blown.


 
  your just gonna be scared that's all.
  Still no problems.


----------



## Sandbo

For low gain I would agree to this ....... but how about the high gain option?
  It produces really loud sound when I turn up the volume(mostly I set a low volume as it suffices)..........the loud high pitch sound is not in my control and if it delivers its full power, I am not sure.


----------



## extrabigmehdi

Quote: 





sandbo said:


> For low gain I would agree to this ....... but how about the high gain option?
> It produces really loud sound when I turn up the volume(mostly I set a low volume as it suffices)..........the loud high pitch sound is not in my control and if it delivers its full power, I am not sure.


 
  just set the gain option according to what your headphone support. There's no improvement in quality by setting it higher than necessary.


----------



## Sandbo

The headphone is of 300ohms, it looks the middle setting (64~300ohms) for gain is enough,
  but lately I have found that for some songs the 300ohms is not loud enough to hear all the details; instead by setting to the highest gain (300~600ohms) and turning the output to 60% it sounds better.
  Someone here shared the same with me:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=337314 (#3)
   
  While for most songs the difference is minimal, maybe I should then stick to the middle gain, for safety reasons....


----------



## extrabigmehdi

You know, I'm not even sure that the gain you choose have an impact when the bug occurs.
  The volume is just set to the max 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




, with the  typical sound .........
  I   use the middle gain too, it's more convenient, especially if you switch regularly between different headphones.
   
  I  use in fact two xonar stx in two different computer , and the problem seems gone.
  I'm not sure it's worth the trouble to try windows 8 now, but lot of people hate it anyways.


----------



## Sandbo

Win8 is not an option for me now......a bit weird for me honestly
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



  You have my thanks for sharing your result with the possible fix, I will get it installed and hope that it's the true cure


----------



## fufula

The bug hasn't been fixed. If you listen to your music at 60%, then I'm guessing 100% would be "listenable" as well, just a little too loud and the noise won't go past that when and if it occurs.
   
  250ohm DT990PROs, I listen at 20-40% (outputting through speaker out/RCA) and, well, it's just scary as hell when you're sitting in a quiet room, with your headphones on, no music playing*, and all of a sudden you get a high-pitched beeping noise coming out of your headphones at volume levels that -- to put it mildly -- you're not accustomed to...
   
  *Because this (and using Ventrilo) is the only case when the problem ever appears. So aside from using Ventrilo, it never happened to me when the card was actually in use; whether while I was listening to some music (WASAPI), playing games or watching movies (WASAPI).


----------



## extrabigmehdi

@fufula
  stating the obvious, but have you  installed the windows 7 hotfix, I've indicated ?
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2653312


----------



## Sandbo

60% works only for some soft songs, "I got rhythm" is one of them.
  For most of the others 20% suffices and 60% is likely blowing my ears
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




, so I am a bit scared now, maybe avoid wearing it besides listening then.
  I used to wear all the time even nothing is being played.


----------



## fufula

Quote: 





extrabigmehdi said:


> @fufula
> stating the obvious, but have you  installed the windows 7 hotfix, I've indicated ?
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2653312


 
   
  Yes, it didn't help. I had it happen once or twice during the past couple of months with the fix installed.


----------



## extrabigmehdi

Hum, ok. The bug is just too rare for me. That's why I wasn't discouraged to buy a second card.
  Some users have never experienced it, it seems.


----------



## superdux

just 10 minutes ago i heard this awful screeching sound again. it had been gone for months now and the last occurence maybe half a year ago.
  if it occurs more often in future i will dump the card, although its convenient for my 5 headphones i have but its really nervewrecking when the sound occurs.


----------



## yehuda

Sorry to bump this old thread. Like the previous poster it had been gone for months but then happened again. First time for me with headphones on. Very loud and traumatizing screech. I use Windows 7. Anyone had it happen under Windows 8 yet?


----------



## extrabigmehdi

Do you switch from time to time between speaker and headphone ?
  Maybe it occurs less when you switch from time to time.
  Also I bought a second card for a second computer,
  and the high pitched sound NEVER occurred.
  Perhaps a particular config I don't know.


----------



## yehuda

Yeah, I frequently switch between speakers and headphones, and I don't think that affects the issue. I agree it could be related to the hardware configuration. I can change the power supply, see if that helps.


----------



## extrabigmehdi

Quote: 





yehuda said:


> Yeah, I frequently switch between speakers and headphones, and I don't think that affects the issue. I agree it could be related to the hardware configuration. I can change the power supply, see if that helps.


 
  well, on the pc I  got the high pitched sound (very rare) I  use a corsair 620 hx psu,
  while on the other (without issue)  I  use a seasonic that should be equivalent.
  Also since the issue is quite rare, it might be that it didn't happen yet with the other config .


----------



## A2Razor

Adding some experience here with Windows 8, since questions of it were asked, and I've now used the card for quite some time under it.
   
  --Problem still exists.
   
  ====================================================================
  Power supply:  Antec HCP-1000 Platinum (have also tried my old Antec TPQ and PC-Power and Cooling 1kw supply)
  Motherboard: ASUS P8C WS
  BIOS: 3306.  Have also tried 3202 and 3108.  Happens with all bioses, no impact on frequency or time of occurrence.
  CPU:  Intel E3 1270v2 (Ivy Bridge, Quad-Core)
  Memory (exact model):  KVR16E11/8 (4 modules, 32GB ECC DR3-1600)
  Do you overclock? No
  Graphics:  EVGA Geforce 690 (card does not matter, happens with any .. including an AMD Radeon 7970)
  Graphics driver:  320.18 (driver does not matter, happens with any)
  Soundcard: ASUS Xonar STX, onboard sound disabled (at bios), videocard sound disabled
  Sound driver:  8.0.8.1818 ... yet also happens with "all" drivers.
  Other cards + drivers:  No extra addon cards
  Peripherals + drivers:  Razer Imperator (mouse), Razer BlackWidow Ultimate (keyboard)
  OS: Windows 8 64bit, all updates (as of 6/1/2013)
  Playback software (when it happened):  Can happen at any time.  Happens randomly in games, on desktop, browsing the internet in Firefox, sometimes as early as the Windows startup sound on OS entry.  Also -- No correlation to GPU clock frequency changes has been observed (I've logged this looking for answers).
  Which audio port do you use?  Both headphones and speakers, happens with either, at any time -- randomly.
  Are you able to consistently reproduce the issue?  No.  Have found no correlation with when it happens, nor any means to reproduce it on command.  Happens roughly 5-10 times a month since I've owned the card for over a year ago.
  ====================================================================
   
  To add even more and potentially debunk hardware combinations being to blame .. I've also tried the card in my ASUS P6T7 (Gen 1 Core i7), in addition to my ASUS M488TD-EVO USB3 machine (AMD 965), and in addition to on a Biostar A880G+ AM3 board (two Intel boards, two AMD boards).  That's three motherboards tested under both Windows 8 "AND" Windows 7, with no variation in frequency of occurrence.  (problem happens on ALL of them)
   
  ***I've also swapped cards with a friend that also owns a Xonar STX, and his board produced the EXACT same problem and number of problem occurrences.  It may be hardware combination related, yet I'm strongly doubting it at this point.
   
   
   
  He on the otherhand claims to have "never" heard the noise -- ever.  Perhaps the problem has to do with electrical noise (power issue to the house)?  Even though most of this should've been filtered out by the PSU.
   
   
  Anyone have a suggestion of another card that has an equivalent version of ASUS' Smart Volume Normalization, or ... something at least similar (preferably with completely different hardware)?  At this point I think I "need" to switch cards, be it that my case is my house's electrical wiring, appliances in the house, or otherwise...  I still am not used to the noise, even though it doesn't "scare the living ****" out of me anymore after a good year of hearing it.


----------



## extrabigmehdi

Still didn't experiment the problem with my second card  on second pc.
  A mystery ... 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




   
  Quote: 





> Originally Posted by *A2Razor* /img/forum/go_quote.gif
> 
> Happens roughly 5-10 times a month since I've owned the card for over a year ago.


 
  That's way too much.
  Try to disable unnecessary playback/recording device in  volume mixer.
  Go to playback speakers / properties/ advanced, and ensure the  sampling rate is the same as the one defined in the xonar audio center.
  When playing music, use a resampler ( for foobar, there's sox) , and set same sampling rate.
  That's all I can suggest.


----------



## A2Razor

Quote: 





extrabigmehdi said:


> Still didn't experiment the problem with my second card  on second pc.
> A mystery ...
> 
> 
> ...


 
   
  Thanks for the suggestions.
   
   
  Sadly already have tried disabling all playback and recording devices that aren't in use (via the Windows Mixer).  Sampling rate I didn't have to touch for the problem to occur the first times, though I've tried setting it back down to PCM 48khz and 44khz, or up to 96khz or higher.  Also have tried things like setting hi-fi mode to shut off any advanced effects in the Xonar Control Panel app, and disabling giving applications exclusive mode priority, etc, via playback device properties for the speaker output.
   
   
  "When playing music, use a resampler ( for foobar, there's sox) , and set same sampling rate."
   
  Not played around much here with application settings, yet I've often had the static squeal start-up in the middle of the night whenever no audio is being played on the machine (idle).
   
   
  ---Short of just giving my friend one of my boxes, putting the card in it, and telling him to "use it".  See if the problem starts using my hardware in a different location, I'm pretty out of ideas.
   
  It's "possible" / I'm starting to suspect that high powered devices like the house AC cycling on are "the trigger".  I live in Arizona, so the AC is running constantly, and cycling on and off all the time.  Alas, I don't have a good way to test this...  I'd probably need get a system hooked upto the breakers box that can measure and plot power draw, so that I can look for a load-spike whenever the squealing starts.
   
  Perhaps getting a power filter / active inverter to power the machine is a good idea to remove any electrical noise / spikes from the line.  At that point though, it'd probably be cheaper to just switch to another card too, heh.


----------



## bcschmerker4

Quote: 





a2razor said:


> Adding some experience here with Windows 8, since questions of it were asked, and I've now used the card for quite some time under it.
> 
> --Problem still exists.
> 
> ...


 
  Given your report of this howl in Windows® 8ight™ 8.0.10000 (MultiProcessor Kernel 6.2.9200), it looks as though Microsoft® has NOT licked the random howl, known to occur in Windows® Se7en™ 7.0.8001 and Windows® Server 2008™ Release 2 6.1.7601, that colored my review of the XONAR® Essence™ STX (see said review, as amended 26 January 2013 from the original 24 April 2012 posting).  In addition, this random howl has been reported on other audio cards and chips.


----------



## AncientWsidom

Quote: 





bcschmerker4 said:


> In addition, this random howl has been reported on other audio cards and chips.


 
  From Asus or from other brands?


----------



## bcschmerker4

Quote: 





ancientwsidom said:


> From Asus or from other brands?


 

 Among the chips affected by this howl (known to affect Windows® 6.1.7601, 6.2.9200, 7.0.8001, and 8.0.10000, all at seemingly random events) are the Creative Laboratories® SoundCore3D® (no specifics on which Sound Blaster® models in particular) and audio chips from not only C-Media® but at least two other manufacturers (no specifics).  Microsoft® attempted a hotfix on C:\Windows\System32\WDMAud.drv and C:\Windows\SysWOW64\WDMAud.drv on the affected Windows® releases (KB2653312).


----------



## extrabigmehdi

Quote: 





bcschmerker4 said:


> Microsoft® attempted a hotfix on C:\Windows\System32\WDMAud.drv and C:\Windows\SysWOW64\WDMAud.drv on the affected Windows® releases (KB2653312).


 
  "Attempted", So this doesn't work ?
  I didn't have a problem since I have installed it in on two Pc with xonar stx. But someone claimed in this thread the hotfix doesn't work.
  The issue was already rare for me, so I can't conclude.


----------



## bcschmerker4

I haven't used the resampler hotfix myself.  The howl the subject of this Thread first showed up on other chips within weeks of the release of Service Pack 1 for Win 7 and Server 2008 Release 2; if it affects Windows 6.1.7601 and 7.0.8001, I had reason to suspect it would also affect 6.2.9200 and 8.0.10000 (which is apparently the case as reported in Post 81 by A2Razor).  Did Microsoft use the patched WDMAud.drv in Win 8 and Server 2012?  I don't know, having decided to hold off on purchase of a Win 8 rig until Service Pack 1 is released.


----------



## A2Razor

I'm not quite sure if the hotfix works or not...  I've just applied it now and am continuing to test under a Win7 dualboot.
  Doesn't seem that this update was installed by Windows Update automatically (go figure), or ... at least it wasn't in my list of installed updates.  WDMAud.drv on my system was certainly a different version than the one listed.
   
   
  Minimally I can say that the problem for-sure happens under Windows 8.
   
  --I'd really ""HOPE"" that Microsoft has applied the fix (if they had one) in their latest and greatest OS, for such a horrible audio glitch that ruins your listening experience ... yet as bcschmerker4 mentioned really there's no way to know unless they confirmed or denied it theirselves.  Will report back if the problem goes away under Windows 7 after having installed that specific KB (may take a few weeks to know for sure).


----------



## extrabigmehdi

Quote: 





a2razor said:


> Doesn't seem that this update was installed by Windows Update automatically (go figure),


 
  yeah, otherwise the system would refuse to install it (displaying the message that the hotfix is already installed) . Perhaps those claiming the hotfix doesn't work, assume it's already installed.


----------



## AncientWsidom

Quote: 





a2razor said:


> I'm not quite sure if the hotfix works or not...  I've just applied it now and am continuing to test under a Win7 dualboot.
> Doesn't seem that this update was installed by Windows Update automatically (go figure), or ... at least it wasn't in my list of installed updates.  WDMAud.drv on my system was certainly a different version than the one listed.


 
  I've applied it but still had the issue happen occasionally. As other mentioned since we don't know how to trigger it it's hard to test whether fixed or not. For the exact same reason I believe MS has not been able to fix it yet either, and I imagine in the big scheme of things they probably don't see it as a huge issue....


----------



## extrabigmehdi

yeah, if there was an easy way to trigger the bug, I guess it would have been fixed for a long time.
  It's enough rare for me.


----------



## A2Razor

---Just had this happen again, Windows 7 64bit Ultimate SP1, with KB2653312 installed this time around.
   
   
  Event happened right at the end of a YouTube video playing on a music-channel loop, right before cycling to the next track in the sequence (I was explicitly aware of when it happened / paying attention closely at the time).  Rather than rebooting, I tried finding what it'd take to "stop" the noise..  Apparently a reboot is NOT required, you just need to stop all audio playback on the system, then start it up again.
   
   
  For example ... close Firefox (which triggers the garbled noise to switch to a pure high frequency hiss), close any applications on the machine that's using the audio device (stop Skype, Mumble, all of your recording software and anything using ASIO, etc), and then produce ANY sound -- such as making the Windows Volume Bar "chime".  Once all applications are ended (and not before), this stopped the hiss and instantly restored sound to normal / working again.
   
   
   
  Is this bug known to exist with the new Creative SoundBlaster ZXR?
   
  It looks feature wise like it'd compete with the Xonar STX pretty well in terms of quality components and audio spec.  Good choice for a drop in replacement?


----------



## Psyside

This is my theory,
  
*IMHO* this is the *ucking flash player that does conflict with the card drivers, and make this issue. This crap needs to die, hate it soooooo much make issues with my video cards, now could be the reason why my soundcard is not working properly.
  
 9/10 times when i get the noise, its when i watch/pause youtube videos, and have some folder open.
  
 My highly educated electrician friend theory,
  
 He say its hardware issue with the card, damaged caps/parts or some other hard to detect - unbalance from the internal parts.
  
 My second theory, its Windows issue.
  
 What do you guys think?


----------



## extrabigmehdi

psyside said:


> This is my theory,
> 
> *IMHO* this is the *ucking flash player that does conflict with the card drivers, and make this issue. This crap needs to die, hate it soooooo much make issues with my video cards, now could be the reason why my soundcard is not working properly.
> 
> ...


 
  
 I don't know, it's been a long time I didn't notice it.
 I removed two sticks of rams that seem to induce other problems (some software crash randomly) , that's perhaps the solution.


----------



## superdux

It occurs randomly on my PC and sometimes there are months no screeching sounds until one day AAAAAARRRRRGGGG&%$§


----------



## bcschmerker4

a2razor said:


> ---Just had this happen again, Windows 7 64bit Ultimate SP1, with KB2653312 installed this time around.
> 
> 
> Event happened right at the end of a YouTube video playing on a music-channel loop, right before cycling to the next track in the sequence (I was explicitly aware of when it happened / paying attention closely at the time).  Rather than rebooting, I tried finding what it'd take to "stop" the noise..  Apparently a reboot is NOT required, you just need to stop all audio playback on the system, then start it up again.
> ...


 

 That's my experience - seemingly any event in Microsoft® Windows® 6-up can start and/or stop the howl, I found.  Can't get it to start consistently, but it stops when I hit one of the DLL icons on the Taskbar, e.g. the Sound app-button.  I've advance plans to test a Creative Laboratories® SB1510 on my next Winbox - the Asus® CM1630-06, which has run faithfully until this month under Microsoft® Windows® 7.0.8001 (MultiProcessor Kernel 6.1.7601), - ran into issues with User Account Control and user-account Registry keys that are preventing UAC from loading Administrator credentials - is slated to be overhauled for Ubuntu® 14.04.1-LTS (LinUX Kernel Series 3.11), and my next new system will run Windows® 8.1.11000 (MultiProcessor Kernel 6.3.9600).  (The XONAR® is now supported by the Advanced LinUX Sound Architecture Project.)


----------



## AncientWsidom

Dude what's with all the trademarks and exact build numbers?!


----------



## PureSound168

psyside said:


> This is my theory,
> 
> *IMHO* this is the *ucking flash player that does conflict with the card drivers, and make this issue. This crap needs to die, hate it soooooo much make issues with my video cards, now could be the reason why my soundcard is not working properly.
> 
> ...


 
  
 Agreed.. in my case, this popping screeching sound happens every time i play a video in a browser that uses flash player.. as far as i can remember, i never had this problem when i first installed the drivers that came with the box. this problem started to come up when i updated my drivers. has anyone tried to use the stock drivers? i cannot replicate this because my dog ate the original cd drivers T_T


----------



## Guinibee

Hello all,
  
 I made an account just because this scared the bejeezus out of me!  I just bought this sound card and a Sennheiser PC360.  The card is fabulous with this headset, but I just got the loud high pitched noise and got nervous so rebooted and started google searching.
  
 My specs:
 i7-2600K
 Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1000W
 16GB Corsair Ram DDR3/1600mhz
 GTX 670 SLI
 ASUS Blu-Ray
 Windows 8.1
  
 Not sure what other specs are needed.
  
 What seemed to trigger it for me was I put a CD into my blu-ray player and as it was about to play all I heard was a whining noise through my headset; I wasn't wearing the headset.  Also I heard the disk just spinning almost like it wasn't spinning correctly, like it was rubbing up on something.  
  
 I'm thinking that maybe the spike in power that the CD player used to boot up maybe freaked out the card somehow, but I'm unsure.  I was debating getting a UPS recently and after reading some of the information in this forum I'm thinking that I have even more excuses to get a clean power source to my PC.  Not sure at all if this is the reason though.
  
 I have the newest beta driver from ASUS's website so I don't know what else to try.  I do wonder about the sample rates...I had it at 48 khz on the xonar audio center when the issue happened and I know for music 44.1 khz is the best way so not sure if that effects it.  On windows I have it set to 16 bit at 44.1 khz.  I'm really unsure how to setup these sample rates, but I do know I read 44.1 is for music and 48 is for games/movies.  I have disabled onboard sound, but I noticed I still have my older Corsair Vengeance 1500 plugged into a usb port so I don't know if that is sending mixed signals in terms of sound to the PC.
  
 I hope this doesn't happen again, but I guess since I already got the issue that I'm wide open for it to happen again.
  
 Does anyone know a fix yet?


----------



## Matthope

psyside said:


> This is my theory,
> 
> *IMHO* this is the *ucking flash player that does conflict with the card drivers, and make this issue. This crap needs to die, hate it soooooo much make issues with my video cards, now could be the reason why my soundcard is not working properly.
> 
> ...


 
  
 Personally i've just changed my computer and with my old rig i never get this screeching problem and i'm on the same OS windows 8.1.
  
 And it always happens on Youtube, so it's a good hints.
  
 Furthermore, in my old rig the spdif connector wasnt connected in the card and now it is. And my sound card it's now really close of my psu, and it's may cause electromagnetic interference. 
  
 And you guys do you have your PSU near of your card? 
  
 I've just put the spdif passtrought off in control panel and deconnect the spdif connector. Since this manipulation I haven't have issue so it's possibly the solution.
  


> Quote by Guinibee
> 
> What seemed to trigger it for me was I put a CD into my blu-ray player and as it was about to play all I heard was a whining noise through my headset; I wasn't wearing the headset.  Also I heard the disk just spinning almost like it wasn't spinning correctly, like it was rubbing up on something.
> 
> ...


 
  
 I don't think those are factors of this issue. I'm pretty sure its about spdif connector/driver. Seriously just deconnect the spdif cable and see if it does a difference. Another thing look if your card is near of your psu. Thanks


----------



## bcschmerker4

bcschmerker4 said:


> ...I've advance plans to test a Creative Laboratories® SB1510 on my next Winbox - the Asus® CM1630-06, which has run faithfully until this month under Microsoft® Windows® 7.0.8001 (MultiProcessor Kernel 6.1.7601), - ran into issues with User Account Control and user-account Registry keys that are preventing UAC from loading Administrator credentials - is slated to be overhauled for Ubuntu® 14.04.1-LTS (LinUX Kernel Series 3.11)....


 
 Update:  I ended up reinstalling Microsoft® Windows® 7.0.8001 from a backup hard-disc image from 2011, as LinUX Kernel 3.13.0-generic is panicky on the CM1630-06 (as of 20 January 2014), forcing an abort of tests of UbuntuGNOME™ 13.12a1 Trusty Tahr™.  The disc image had the install of Asus® XONAR® Audio Center™ 7.12.8.1792; I already plan to replace the same with the latest version of the Unified XONAR® Software™, once more needful software upgrades are completed.


----------



## Psyside

matthope said:


> Personally i've just changed my computer and with my old rig i never get this screeching problem and i'm on the same OS windows 8.1.
> 
> And it always happens on Youtube, so it's a good hints.
> 
> ...


 


> Spdif is disabled in Windows, ill try to disconnected it from the card. Yes, my card is like 2cm over the psu, but keep in mind this mostly happen when watching Youtube, and have few videos paused. Dont see why it would happen only when i watch YT, and its electromagnetic problem? i will give it a try.
> 
> BTW i have high end Seasonic power supply unit, so don't know really.


----------



## Matthope

Since, i've disconneted the spdif i've never had this issue again so think its solved.


----------



## Psyside

I think is Youtube/fp issue, how long have you been problem free? what did you install change since? same OS/PC? same drivers?
  
 I will try your sugggestion, but last night i saw that i had problems with flashplayer the videos would load only 1/2 the rest of the video is in tiny window, 15 mins later at most, the ultra loud noise appeared, but this time was mixed with white noise....AND again while pressing play/pause Youtube videos! this is same like the previous time, when YT updated the design, and new fp version is used i guess, whenever YT playback is unstable, i get this problem.


----------



## xcom

I am not sure if this helps but I am not experiencing this random high pitch noise.
 I am running Debian Wheezy x86_64 and Slackware 14.1 x84_64.
  
 Note that I am not using a headset. I am using satellite speakers.


----------



## bcschmerker4

xcom said:


> I am not sure if this helps but I am not experiencing this random high pitch noise.
> I am running Debian Wheezy x86_64 and Slackware 14.1 x84_64.
> 
> Note that I am not using a headset. I am using satellite speakers.


 

 Thanks for the comparison point.  I've been getting the occasional 6 kHz scream on Microsoft® Windows® 6.x (specifically, 7.0.8001, Kernel 6.1.7601), and the scream on and off are tied to OS audio events; I figured that this would not be the case on LinUX with ALSA 1.0.25-up.  I recently had to abort testing Ubuntu® 13.12a1 Trusty Tahr™ on my Asus® CM1630-06 as upgraded, as LinUX Kernel 3.13.0-4-generic was panicky on my particular combination of hardware; so far, so good with C-Media® CMI-8788 Driver 8.0.8.1815 (packaged with Maxed Tech® UNi XONAR® Audio Software™ 1.63).


----------



## Psyside

Guys, i'm very close to fix he problems! i'm problem free like 2 monrths + my pro friend which is ALOT into audio high end gear and electronic parts - dacs/apms ect, gave me one suggestion, since i change it, i didn't had the problem not a single time! i will report back if its the fix!


----------



## fufula

It hasn't happened in over a year. I only recently made some changes to my setup (GFX card, SSD drive) and reinstalled Windows, but even long before that the problem was gone. That and I'm pretty sure I used Opera back when it last occured, whereas now I use Palemoon. Incidentally, I haven't been using my headphones at home much lately (been always using RCA though), so even if the problem did occur again I guess it wouldn't bother me that much...
  
 I wish I could be of more help, but I honestly have no idea what fixed it for me. I'm sure it wasn't THE fix from MS -- might've been a different one I received through Windows Update. It's also possible that some newer version of the UNi Xonar Driver helped -- I always keep them updated.


----------



## extrabigmehdi

Yeah, didn't have the problem again too. I use regular driver, but also a bit more speakers.


----------



## Psyside

How i "fixed it" 
  
 Right click on asus xonar audio center in the task bar, press Asus xonar ASIO, set it to 24 bit/40ms instead of 10, done. Not 100% sure if this was the fix, but i'm 90% sure...since i changed to 40 ms, not a single time i had the issue. YMMV, but pretty sure that made the difference! i have the same hardware/OS, nothing has changed.


----------



## Psyside

LOL after few flashplayer updates, i'm back to crappy playback performance (video) and i had the issue happen to me like 5 times yet again. It is not FIXED.


----------



## PureSound168

i attempted to contact ASUS regarding this, i gave them a detailed description about the problem and the solutions i have tried in order to fix this. i also told them i have tried all the driver versions available at their website.. 
  
 i got a reply from them telling me to try to re install the driver. DUH??? and  if the problem still persists then have the sound card returned for RMA.. unfortunately, the sound card is working under normal conditions so the store from which i bought it wont take it back.
  
 last night is where i draw the line.. i was listening to some music then BAMMM!! that loud pitch noise got me again. that event
 inspired me to post here at head-fi. 
  
 i believe this is the ultimate solution to fixing this problem. it is a simple 3 step procedure:
  
 1. remove sound card from cpu
 2. BURN or throw it away. your ears are worth way much more than this hardware. 
 3. get an external DAC, i already ordered a dacport LX 
  
  
 to those people with the same issues as mine, my advise is to save your ears.. i think this is a hardware problem that cannot be fixed. 
 get a new external DAC.
  
  
 peace!


----------



## fufula

Sorry to hear that, I remember how annoying that is.
  
 There were discussion threads up on the official ASUS forums concerning this issue a long time ago. Not sure if they're still going after all these years. Last I checked, there was no official word on how to fix it.
  
 It's possible that this might not be a driver or even chip specific problem though and something else is at fault here (some mobo/soundcard incompatibility, software configuration). I've seen Auzentech, Creative as well as external DAC owners reporting the same or similar random noises coming out of their speakers/headphones. That and the fact that it's so rare is what made me stick with STX. Even if I did get another DAC and it actually wasn't the card's fault, it could take a few long months for the problem to rear its ugly head again.
  
 As for Flash, if you're using YouTube, couldn't you switch to the html5 player? https://www.youtube.com/html5
  
 EDIT: As I stated before, I don't have this problem anymore even though I'm still using the card and I haven't done any significant changes to my hardware or software setup.
 Also, I posted these links earlier in this thread. They threads are long dead:
 http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&id=20090222084608127&board_id=21&model=Xonar%20Essence%20STX&page=8&count=78
 http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20110101010416253&SLanguage=en-us&board_id=21&model=Xonar%20Essence%20ST&page=1


----------



## bcschmerker4

puresound168 said:


> i attempted to contact ASUS regarding this, i gave them a detailed description about the problem and the solutions i have tried in order to fix this. i also told them i have tried all the driver versions available at their website..
> 
> i got a reply from them telling me to try to re install the driver. DUH??? and  if the problem still persists then have the sound card returned for RMA.. unfortunately, the sound card is working under normal conditions so the store from which i bought it wont take it back.
> 
> ...


 
 Actually, as I noted in Post 107 above, the problem as I suspect it is with not the drivers, but Microsoft® Windows® 6.x itself - the random 6 kHz scream starting or stopping I found to be tied to OS events.  As far as I am aware, no similar problem exists in ALSA 1.0.22-up under LinUX; don't know whether this card has been successfully run under Apple® Mac OS® X™.


----------



## PureSound168

fufula said:


> Sorry to hear that, I remember how annoying that is.
> 
> There were discussion threads up on the official ASUS forums concerning this issue a long time ago. Not sure if they're still going after all these years. Last I checked, there was no official word on how to fix it.
> 
> ...


 
  
  


bcschmerker4 said:


> Actually, as I noted in Post 107 above, the problem as I suspect it is with not the drivers, but Microsoft® Windows® 6.x itself - the random 6 kHz scream starting or stopping I found to be tied to OS events.  As far as I am aware, no similar problem exists in ALSA 1.0.22-up under LinUX; don't know whether this card has been successfully run under Apple® Mac OS® X™.


 
  
  
 thanks for the concern and advise.. i must admit i posted while i was angry because my ears were still ringing at that moment. i believe asus makes high quality products but nobody's perfect. i also agree it may be a microsoft o.s. issue or a direct x issue.
  
 good luck guys!


----------



## fufula

fufula said:


> but even long before that the problem was gone.


 
  
 Alright, scratch that.
  
 It's just extremely rare.


----------



## rallzor

I have found a way to reproduce the bug! If I skip in a song repeatedly back to back it always happen sooner or later. I am on windows 8.1 and use foobar with wasapi. I might also add that I have turned of any kind of fade when skipping and have 510 ms buffer. I have also found out that the loud sound always appear right after silence, like when I turn on a youtube video or when mpc-hc plays the next video in the folder.


----------



## dmr87

Hi there, just signed up to share my experience with this. Just happened for the 2nd time in two years, the first time was a couple of months ago. I wrote off the 1st as just a bug or something and didn't think much about it after that, now when it happened again I googled it and came here.
  
 I'm also on W7-64bit, both times have been triggered by starting a video file in MPC, high pitched noise from both channels. Rebooting the PC seems to be the only solution. Not that I've tried much else, just wanted to get rid of the sound so rebooted as fast as possible. I tried switching between my speakers and back to headphones but the noise was still there. I'm on the latest official drivers, think they are from 2013. Anyway, it's a ****ty thing, but it seems very rare for me at least so I don't care that much.


----------



## arcgotic

Wanted to share my experience with Xonar U7, maybe it will help someday someone.
  
 I had this annoying ringing, at high frequencies.
  
 Solution was to set he Xonar to 44.1 khz sampling rate. I noticed that any resampling was introducing the ringing. All my music is 44.1 so it is ok for now. Also, i disabled all effects, DTS Dolby etc and killed the processes from task manager, all processes that have something to do with Asus Xonar U7.
  
 The ringing is gone.


----------



## FranzWesson

I hate to bump such an ancient thread, but I figured I might as well add my experience with this particular issue.
  
 I purchased my STX in early 2012 and I have experienced this same issue approx. 4 times. I am pretty sure I experienced this issue on both my headphones as well as my speakers, so I am leaning away from the headphone amp on the card and towards a hard-to-replicate driver issue.
  
 I am running Windows 8.1 and had my playback settings at 44.1KHz/24-bit. I am currently using the 1.72a rev 2 version of the UNi Xonar drivers, but since I've had this issue a few times over the past several years, my version of Windows as well as the driver versions have changed. I still get the issue.
  
 I ran into it most recently (two days ago) while browsing Youtube in Firefox. I was using the HTML5 player and seeking through a random video. As soon as I let go of the mouse on the seek bar, I immediately went from normal playback to massive distortion. After tearing off my headphones and stopping all audio playback, I had the familiar tone coming from my headphones until I rebooted my computer.
  
 I haven't had any issues since. Given how infrequently this has occurred in the past for me (about once per year), any testing/troubleshooting is nearly impossible.
  
 I don't think it's a hardware incompatibility because I regularly swap components out of my rig so my PC is a completely different machine than it was in 2012.
  
 It's annoying, because I cringe everytime I pull my headphones on now.


----------



## bcschmerker4

Ye ran across a problem I traced to the Windows audio stack itself - OS audio events turn the 6 kHz scream on and off.  This is a serious bug in Windows 6._n_ that has yet to be fixed (it never occurred in Windows 2000 Professional or XP); don't know whether Microsoft Corporation has finally solved the problem in Win 10.


----------



## nobody9147

I have from time to time the problem. too. Happens the most watching youtube.


----------



## FranzWesson

bcschmerker4 said:


> Ye ran across a problem I traced to the Windows audio stack itself - OS audio events turn the 6 kHz scream on and off.  This is a serious bug in Windows 6._n_ that has yet to be fixed (it never occurred in Windows 2000 Professional or XP); don't know whether Microsoft Corporation has finally solved the problem in Win 10.


 
 Just got massive audio distortion when seeking through Youtube video. Running Windows 10 (x64, build 10240)
  
 However, I did NOT get the high pitched whining afterward. I'm not sure if that's because I got out of the video so fast or they "fixed" that in 10.
  
 Still, I am now debating getting rid of this card again.


----------



## Button

Wow I've just had this problem, started a youtube video and this insanely loud high pitch tone came out of the headphone and the audio was distorted. I just threw my headphones on the floor it was so loud.
  
 Running windows 10 and the newest drivers
  
 I'm going to have to get rid of this now as I don't want that to happen ever again.


----------



## bcschmerker4

*Just as I suspected:*  Microsoft Corporation _still_ hasn't fixed the Vista audio stack for Windows® 10.0.10800.  I never ran across this scream in Ubuntu® 10.04-LTS or 12.04-LTS.


----------



## Sofacykel

So I just created an account here to add to the discussion.
  
 I've once had a Xonar Essence STX for a full year without it happening. T'was a good sound card, alas there were some issues here and there with it stop responding and whatnot. I liked the audio quality I got, so when it came to build a new PC I went straight for the Xonar Essence STX 2 (or II).
  
 I've had this card for just over a month and now, two times in two days, I've had this issue. Both were while searching through a Youtube video in the new player with HTML5 controls. Extremely loud, distorted sound that, upon ending, leaves a lasting tone just as described here. I contacted ASUS Support with the issue, this is what I got:
  
  
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
*Original mail:*
 "[Product Information]
 Product Type : Audio Cards
 Product Model : Essence STX II
 Product S/N : (left out)
 Place of Purchase : (left out)
 Date of Purchase : 2015/07/08
 Operating System : Windows 8.1 64bit

 [Problem Description]
 Very, very rarely the sound card will produce very, VERY loud distorted sound upon initiating playback of an audio file. After stopping playback a loud sound will continue playing around the 6KHz frequency. I am not sure I can reproduce this issue on demand.

 I am very concerned about this happening again and that it will potentially harm my hearing - it is that loud in my headphones (Audio Technica ATH-M50).

 The exact same issue has been reported several times for one of your earlier products, the Essence I. It seems this issue was not fixed with the release of the Essence II.

 Source: (http://www.head-fi.org/t/494565/xonar-essense-stx-random-loud-high-pitched-ringing-noise)

 According to the Essence STX II Audio Center, these are the software versions:
 Audio Center: 0.3.1.11
 Sound Driver Version: 8.1.11.5
 GX: 1.0.12.106
 ASIO: 2.0.0.14

 Please help or I will have to part with this product. I am not risking losing my hearing for a slight increase in audio quality.

 Kind regards"
  
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
*Reply from ASUS Support:*
 "_Hi_
_ _
_There is nothing we can directly do as we do not offer any direct replacement or service for component products and we have not received any reports of this issue from the nordics except your that i am aware of. If you suspect that your card is faulty please return it to the retailer you bought it from for RMA processing."_
  
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  
 That reply is extremely disheartening. I am dealing with a small case of anxiety and I definitely feel physically and mentally unwell putting my headphones on daily now. I really enjoy the sound quality it provides while staying inside the case of my PC, and I don't think any other sound card would do it for me, so there either having this, or going full, dreadful onboard sound.
  
 To think nobody else has reported it "in the nordics" makes me a bit suspicious.. But people tend to go to forums for support, so I suppose they wouldn't get a lot of inquiries. I urge everyone with this issue to contact support so they can be made aware and maybe push Microsoft to look into their faulty software audio solution.
  
 Sadface.


----------



## Button

Wow that reply from ASUS is shocking, of course they know there is a problem. There has been multiple forum topics about this issue. I have taken the card out of my system, I am back using the interference ridden internal audio on the motherboard connected up to an O2 amp. Sounds no where near as good as the STX did but its better than going deaf or damaging my headphone... -_-


----------



## bcschmerker4

I've read a lot of complaints about Microsoft® Windows® 6._n_ and 10.0 recently, and from all indications Win 10 has inherited 6._n_'s defective audio stack; not much ASUSTeK Computer can do about a problem in Windows itself.  I'm anticipating rebuilding my Asus® CM1630-06 for Ubuntu® 16.04-LTS, and the XONAR® series is already supported by the Advanced LinUX Sound Architecture Project:  The driver snd-virtuoso is specific to the Asus® AV-100 audio chip and will control the output-select relays properly, unlike the driver snd-oxygen for the standard C-Media® CMI-8788 and CMI-8888.


----------



## stealthspark3

Contributing my experience below, it's disgusting that this is an issue. I'm ditching this card immediately.
  
_I was seeking through a YouTube video when suddenly continuous max-volume screeching glitchnoise was pounding through my speakers, way past the system volume level I was at. I'm wondering if there's any precedent of these drivers fixing this specific issue. I think I'm going to ditch the card, I can't risk damaging my equipment or my hearing testing such an atrocious bug. These cards are dangerous._
  
_System:
 Xonar Essence STX
 44.1k / Hi-Fi Mode enabled
 Default ASUS Windows 8 64 bit drivers
 Windows 10 Pro 64 bit
 Firefox 40.0.2
 HTML 5 YouTube player_


----------



## fufula

I don't think this issue is limited to the Essence ST(X) I / II line of cards. Regardless, that reply you got from ASUS is not just disheartening, it's an outright lie. I personally reported this issue directly to ASUS and spoke with people who did so as well; there were many threads on their official support forums (I might've posted some links a few pages back, though they're probably dead now,) where many people reported the same exact issue of random high-pitched noises. At no point have they acknowledged the problem or done anything about it, obviously.
  
 On a different note, I'm currently using W10 with the Uni Xonar drivers (low DPC) and over the course of a lttle over a month I've already had some weird random noise come out of my speakers twice. Not exactly high-pitched, one was more like pink noise or something, but extremely annoying nonetheless... Pretty sure I had some YouTube videos running in the background both times.


----------



## mindbomb

I think it's an issue with heat. Try using the pci/pci express slot furthest from your graphics card or using a graphics card with lower tdp.


----------



## fufula

If this was a heat issue, it'd happen when I'm playing games. It never did. Besides most people are aware they should keep their sound card away from their video card to avoid interference.


----------



## mindbomb

Well, I have two xonars, and one has never had this issue, while the other had it intermittently. I'm suspecting the reason was heat related since the one exhibiting the issue was just above the graphics card, and must have been heated by convection. The other one was below the graphics card and had a few slots of space in between too.


----------



## Booki

Hey all, Just registered to chuck in what happened to me... I havn't read all of the thread, but noticed there are some recent posts.
  
 I too just had this happen to me, this frightening, horrible experience leaving me scared to use my headphones again (Audio Technica AD700's). Bad apart about these headphones, and id assume most audiophile style is there is no volume. So it just blasted me deaf!
  
 After the initial "bang" it continued a high frequency squealing/buzzing noise. The only way i could suppress it was to switch to my speakers, although i did not risk turning them on.
  
 After a reboot, the noise is gone but i am a little skeptical in using them now.
  
 I am using;
  
 Windows 10 Pro 64bit
 Asus Xonar STX
 Driver: UNi Xonar 1822 v1.75a r2.exe
  
 Also note: This happened while I watched a youtube video, no games or anything cpu/gpu hungry were running at the time.


----------



## bcschmerker4

> *Originally posted by **Booki*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
  
 Yep, core problem in the Vista audio stack.  The 6 kHz scream is tied to OS events.  The Asus® AV-100 and similar chips from C-Media International aren't the only audio chips to be hit with this problem.  Microsoft engineers estimated the 6 kHz scream as related to the resampler, but the hotfix wasn't much help in this department.  I've heard of no similar problem in LinUX.


----------



## Booki

So I guess there is no fix...
  
 Is it a sound card issue, driver issue or a operating system issue?


----------



## bcschmerker4

I've determined the 6 kHz scream to be an OS issue.


----------



## dmr87

dmr87 said:


> Hi there, just signed up to share my experience with this. Just happened for the 2nd time in two years, the first time was a couple of months ago. I wrote off the 1st as just a bug or something and didn't think much about it after that, now when it happened again I googled it and came here.
> 
> I'm also on W7-64bit, both times have been triggered by starting a video file in MPC, high pitched noise from both channels. Rebooting the PC seems to be the only solution. Not that I've tried much else, just wanted to get rid of the sound so rebooted as fast as possible. I tried switching between my speakers and back to headphones but the noise was still there. I'm on the latest official drivers, think they are from 2013. Anyway, it's a ****ty thing, but it seems very rare for me at least so I don't care that much.


 
  
 Hello again, I wrote here a while ago (quote above). Still happens from time to time and it has happened with both the UNi drivers and the latest Windows 10 drivers ASUS released just a couple of days ago. I'm thinking about what my next move is, if I should just give up on this card and try something else. The card cost a pretty penny after all and it's ridiculous that we even have this problem. And to reiterate, it only happens when I start or skip through a video, either through MPC or on Youtube (doesn't matter if it's flash or HTML5).
  
 edit - Gonna try switch the card to another PCI slot, one thing I haven't tried so worth a shot. I'll come back and update after some testing.
  
 Feels like it would be a bigger issue if it is an OS thing, I've read some quick customer feedback on local sites/stores regarding the card and no one seems to have problems.
  
 edit 2 - Slot change didn't help


----------



## racofer

So I have been having this problem as well using my Xonar D1 for well over a year. It's specially terrifying since I only use headphones (senns HD515).
  
 Relevant specs:

Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3
Asus Xonar D1
Windows 8.1
Driver UNi Xonar 1822 v1.75a r2
  
 Every single time I had this issue was watching a video on Youtube. Maybe, if I remember correctly, I had it happen once in Assetto Corsa back when it was still in very early access, but I always have Firefox running in the background. I watch a lot of videos using MPC-HC and I never had this issue there.
  
 Steps that often cause this loud squeal of doom:

Open a video on Youtube (using either Flash or HTML5, doesn't seem to matter);
Skip to some random position;
Pray it doesn't puncture your eardrums;
  
 I'm literally developing PTSD over this thing. I've tried different driver versions as well to no avail. One thing that fixes this issue is to close the glitch's originating application, in this case Firefox. After that all sounds return to normal with no need to reboot.
  
 It's intriguing that of the few people on this thread that mentioned it, they were using Youtube in Firefox. Could Firefox be triggering these glitches? I have Chrome but I barely use it, so saying that I never had this problem in there while watching Youtube videos may just be a matter of luck. Could anyone verify?
  
 I'm seriously considering ditching this card and getting a headphone DAC and plugging it into the onboard optical output before I go deaf. It also doesn't surprise me one bit that Asus doesn't give a flying screw about this issue, as their driver support for these cards has been more than lacking since the beginning. And like Button said on an earlier post (http://www.head-fi.org/t/494565/xonar-essense-stx-random-loud-high-pitched-ringing-noise/120#post_11844040), I remember reading about this issue on the Asus support boards and no help was ever given.
  
 I also have a hard time believing it's a faulty card as it always happens in specific usage situations (Youtube + skipping the video). If the hardware was faulty it would trigger more often in random situations, but by the looks of it, it may be a combination of OS + Drivers + Applications.
  
 Never had this happen with any card other than a Xonar.


----------



## bcschmerker4

I've had the 6 kHz scream start from _any_ Application, even an individual-device Control Panel, at random.  The problem is tied to OS events.  Microsoft Corporation put up a hotfix for the audio-resampler library in Windows 6._n_, but it doesn't fix the 6 kHz scream trigger for everybody; the problem has not been completely resolved for Windows 10, either.


----------



## EasyC

Hi Everyone,
  
 Found this thread through some googling. I've had this happen twice in around the last 2 weeks (about a week apart). I've owned an Essence ST for I don't know....5 years or something and never had this happen until just a couple of weeks ago. Like some other people have mentioned and for me, this constant loud pitch sound has only kicked in during youtube videos. I also use Firefox.
  
 When it has happened I've closed Firefox straight away (mostly because I've almost had a heart attack) and also dragged any volume sliders down to 0 and even clicked on mute speakers, but it seems that doesn't work so I just log off rather then restart my PC which fixes it. I thought at first it may have been flash, but I remembered I use Youtube's HTML5 player.
  
 So I'm at a loss as to why this would be happening after so many years of use.
  
 Here's any extra info that may be useful:
  
 Win 7 64 bit
 Audio Driver v7.12.8.1794
 DT 990 pro


----------



## Sofacykel

easyc said:


> Hi Everyone,
> 
> Found this thread through some googling. I've had this happen twice in around the last 2 weeks (about a week apart). I've owned an Essence ST for I don't know....5 years or something and never had this happen until just a couple of weeks ago. Like some other people have mentioned and for me, this constant loud pitch sound has only kicked in during youtube videos. I also use Firefox.
> 
> ...


 
  
 I thought I had written that, it sounds exactly like how it happened to me, except I had an Essence ST, and now have an Essence II, and I'm running W8.1. When it happened to me however, I got very loud clipping sound of the video I was playing (like, way beyond sound card spec and possibly damaging my headphones kind of sound level and distortion) - I got the ringing after stopping the video.
  
 It feels like Firefox and Youtube is the culprit, or at least the method of provoking the issue most reliably. I've since updated Firefox once, put the Xonar center to force 192KHz 24bit and it hasn't happened since. I don't know how or why but it seems to have fixed it for me. Still kind of scared of skipping in Youtube videos though, it really scars the mind.


----------



## mindbomb

So I have 2 computers with xonars, and this happens only on one of them. So I think I can find the cause by just looking at the differences between the setups. My theory atm is that there is some hardware instability on the other motherboard that is responsible. I'm trying now with different voltages and clocks.
  
 I use an external amp with it's own volume control, so the noise is still normal volume, so it's only mildly annoying. It happens at a frequency of about once a month, so it takes a while to test any potential solutions.


----------



## Undesirable

I have had this high pitched noise twice while mounting encrypted containers in VeraCrypt, which is a very CPU intensive task, and once while opening Facebook (there were some videos in my feed) in Firefox. Another time it happened while I was mousing over my downloads on my Download Status Bar, which is an addon for Firefox. It calculates the MD5 hash when you do this, which is another CPU intensive task. I have mounted encrypted containers and opened facebook hundreds if not thousands of times since without issue, so this is a really rare occurrence and difficult to reproduce. My processor is overclocked, but apparently stable (no blue screens after I initially set it up).
  
 BIOS Settings (animated GIF set to 10 seconds per image, click for larger version):


----------



## rvcjew

This only happens for me when swapping across youtube videos for some reason I guess as it swaps sound process's. My god does it hurt with cans on, at least it's rare.


----------



## WaveRider69

You guys, is it happening on both left and right channels or just one?


----------



## Undesirable

Both channels for me, I believe.


----------



## rvcjew

waverider69 said:


> You guys, is it happening on both left and right channels or just one?


 
 Both, it allways makes you think your pc has froze.


----------



## MajesticTwelve

undesirable said:


> I have had this high pitched noise twice while mounting encrypted containers in VeraCrypt, which is a very CPU intensive task, and once while opening Facebook (there were some videos in my feed) in Firefox. Another time it happened while I was mousing over my downloads on my Download Status Bar, which is an addon for Firefox. It calculates the MD5 hash when you do this, which is another CPU intensive task. I have mounted encrypted containers and opened facebook hundreds if not thousands of times since without issue, so this is a really rare occurrence and difficult to reproduce. My processor is overclocked, but apparently stable (no blue screens after I initially set it up).


 
 It may be related because for me it happened for the first time (5 years using Xonar D1 without problems) few days after I overclocked my CPU (2500K on Asus P8P67 Pro motherboard). I have offset set to 0.07v and turbo mode additional voltage to +0.02v.


----------



## Undesirable

Had the screech again when fast-forwarding through a video. This time it stopped when I paused / navigated away from the video, and sound returned to normal. Normally the screech carries on until I reset the computer.


----------



## MajesticTwelve

undesirable said:


> Had the screech again when fast-forwarding through a video. This time it stopped when I paused / navigated away from the video, and sound returned to normal. Normally the screech carries on until I reset the computer.


 

 When I had it for the first time recently I also didn't have to reboot, just paused or rewound to the earlier part of the video.


----------



## WaveRider69

Is it extremely loud for you guys?  Mine was excruciatingly loud.  I just don't remember if it was left channel only or both right and left channel when it used to happen to me when I had my card a while back.  Have any of you experienced any slight loss of hearing damage in the 3khz or 6khz region as a result of this?


----------



## MajesticTwelve

waverider69 said:


> Is it extremely loud for you guys?  Mine was excruciatingly loud.  I just don't remember if it was left channel only or both right and left channel when it used to happen to me when I had my card a while back.  Have any of you experienced any slight loss of hearing damage in the 3khz or 6khz region as a result of this?


 

 For me it wasn't THAT loud but maybe it depends on the headphones you have (I have Creative Aurvana Live!). I also took off my headphones very quickly so maybe I don't remember it right. I doubt it damaged my hearing in any way. I wonder if changing the max channel output in the C-Media panel (I have it on 0 level now, max level is +12) to a lower level will make the noise more quiet (smaller difference in the sound volume because with these settings you will have to set the Windows volume to let's say 60%).


----------



## fufula

For some reason the issue seems to be more prevalent in Windows 10. I've been using the new OS since July and it's already happened at least 5 times:\


----------



## Undesirable

Well I've had enough of it. It's ear-piercingly loud for me on my Beyerdynamic DT880 Pro cans, and nobody's proposed a verified cause or definitive solution. Surely it can't be due to "OS events" if the noise only occurs on the Xonar series of sound cards? I'm about ready to try the Devil HDX 7.1 Channel PCI-E Soundcard because it's cheap(er) and has similar hi-fi sound quality to the STX.


----------



## MajesticTwelve

OK, I think there are 3 things that might have caused this problem in my situation (things that I've recently changed in my setup):
 1. Overclocking my 2500K for the first time (4,5Ghz)
 2. Buying additional ram modules (I had 2x4GB, now 4x4GB of the same model but Corsair changed something and the new set is single ranked not double like the original ones, I had 3 BSOD with memory_management recently, with the stock XMP profile).
 3. Windows 10 (I doubt it's the cause becuase I've been using it for over 1 month before the noise happened).
  
 I think the noise is connected with the 1 point (overclock or overvoltage) because after I set my CPU to default voltage and multiplier, I haven't experienced this problem again (with OC I had it 2 times - 5 days apart).


----------



## bcschmerker4

undesirable said:


> Well I've had enough of it. It's ear-piercingly loud for me on my Beyerdynamic DT880 Pro cans, and nobody's proposed a verified cause or definitive solution. Surely it can't be due to "OS events" if the noise only occurs on the Xonar series of sound cards? I'm about ready to try the Devil HDX 7.1 Channel PCI-E Soundcard because it's cheap(er) and has similar hi-fi sound quality to the STX.


 
 Thanks for tipping me off to a possible solution to the 6kHz-scream problem that so far has defied a permanent fix in Microsoft® Windows® 6-up.  ASUSTeK Computer has used the C-Media® CMI-8888DHT PCIe DSP chip to date only in the ROG® XONAR® Phoebus™, which hadn't the purest analog support, unlike the Essence™ range currently hamstrung by the AV-100 DSP (based on the C-Media® CMI-8788 PCI 2.0, which requires a bridge chip to function on PCIe hardware).


----------



## trooper05

I had this exact same issue that lasted a few weeks, I would get scared using the sound card, it seems as if its sending a high pitched screech at full gain 600 ohm regardless of what gain setting you put on. Once it happens it just ruins any activity your doing like listening to music, Id end up throwing my headphones on the floor for fear of going deaf.
  
 I solved the issue, it is related to system interrupts, when a device such as a network adapter or your sound card wants resources it sends a hardware signal to the processor that stops running processes and takes priority. Each device has a IRQ (interrupt request) associated to it.
  
 I ran DPC Latency Checker which shows what is interrupting the system for resources and saw that I kept getting small peaks of high latency, when these spikes occurred the screeching would happen.
  
 The first thing to do is to disable core parking in windows,
  
 "*C**ore Parking" *dynamically disables CPU cores in an effort to conserve power when idle. Disabled cores are re-enabled as the CPU load increases once again." When cores are parked it caused massive interrupt requests which raised latency.
  
I then disabled all unnecessary devices I don't need like Virtual Machine Network adapters, Wireless Adapters, On board sound in the BIOS, Disabled Intel speed-step in the BIOS which dynamically changes the CPU frequency, Disable Intel turbo boost in the BIOS, Disable C states in the BIOS.
  
 In the latter before doing this I was getting frequent spikes of 4000 US latency, Now it stays under 50 US at all times, I've been using the sound card for months now with no more screeching. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




  
 If you are over-clocking your system set it back to stock as it causes system instability with detrimental performance on system interrupts. Think about it your sound card demands resources from your computer, other devices are taking priority, you sound card is left stranded and screeches. 
  
 Also get the UNI Xonar drivers as they provide lower DPC latency!
  
 Hope this helps


----------



## Undesirable

So if all these interruptions are occurring all the time because of core parking, C-states and everything else, then why is the screeching so infrequent? Why can't the sound card compensate or avoid surpassing set amp parameters to make the noise at max ohm and max volume. I'd understand if it stuttered or popped slightly when the interruption occurred.


----------



## trooper05

The issue is not caused by core parking, C-states, etc exactly, its caused by high interrupt latency. 
  
 To quote Wki, "In computing, *interrupt latency* is the time that elapses from when an *interrupt* is generated to when the source of the *interrupt* is serviced. For many operating systems, devices are serviced as soon as the device's *interrupt* handler is executed." All those things you disable lower interrupt latency.  
  
 I think the Asus® AV-100 audio chip cant handle high interrupt latency, as I could run my on-board sound card without issue . For me it wasn't infrequent it was happening every day, in fact I could re create the issue by enabling all the things I have disabled.


----------



## Undesirable

I would rather purchase a different sound card that would allow me to use said features and put up with negligible latencies that wouldn't normally cause an issue.


----------



## trooper05

I 100% agree with you, I shouldn't have to disable all them features to have  a functioning sound card. Like you say why buy high end components with all these features and not be able to use them. If you want to recreate the issue enable loads of VMware network adapters and I promise it will happen everyday not once every couple of months. 
  
 But if you only experience it rarely just disable core parking and see if it happens again, you can get DPC latency checker for free to see what your systems latency is now, you can watch your system when cores are parked to see how it reacts. Core parking for me was the main issue, I disabled everything else as a precaution as it was occurring everyday.  
  
 I am past internal sound-cards, I think in the future I am just going to stick to external DACS.


----------



## Undesirable

Using that DPC Latency Checker utility, I found that HWiNFO was causing spikes with its Periodic Polling of Bus Clock setting in the Options / Safety menu. So I've disabled that and the graph now stays around the 500µs mark, which is in the green.


----------



## trooper05

That is good, you want it in the green, see if the issue occurs now that your latency is low and let me know .
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 You can get it lower, get a program called LatencyMon  you can go into the driver tab and see which devices are using the most resources and disable them if necessary.


----------



## XonarSquealer

I've had the Xonar essence stx for nearly 5 years, and never had this issue until I upgraded to Windows 10 a month ago (win 7 home premium previous)

 No overclocking or any changes to the system or software that I can think of, just the Win 10 upgrade.

 Why would I have not had it before?

 Happens randomly when opening a new Youtube video in Chrome.

 Using stock drivers from Asus.

 *just had it happen again with latencymon running... everything in the green, didn't seem to be any latency problems


----------



## singularhippo

Just wanted to post and say that I experience the same thing. I've had an Essence STX for several years, almost all of that time has been on W7 Pro 64. Every once in awhile this would happen when some player on a website would start, primarily flash based. That is the only time I ever noticed it happening on W7 and it would happen at most around once a month, sometimes several months in between occurances.
  
 Since upgrading to W10 Pro 64 about 6 weeks ago though, this has started happening much more than I am finding comfortable, even up to several times a day. The difference I notice on W10 is when it happens. Namely, it has happened while going to a game page within the Steam client, it has happened when I got a UAC prompt to install a program, and it has also happens when opening web pages that play videos like Youtube or TwitchTV.
  
 This last time was noticeably louder than the others. After I chucked my Sennheisers off my head and sent them hanging over my chair I realized I need to make a change. For the time being, as I currently don't have another sound solution that gives atleast the same quality, I am downgrading back to W7. I guess it's time to look for a proper DAC/Amp combo as I'd rather not have any long term hearing issues. 
  
 And also big thanks to others to posting your experiences.


----------



## Undesirable

xonarsquealer said:


> *just had it happen again with latencymon running... everything in the green, didn't seem to be any latency problems


 
  
 I thought it was too good to be true that it would be an easy fix like reducing DPC Latency.
  
 Well I've got my Powercolor Devil HDX sound card now. Been running it for 4 days in Windows 10 without issue. The drivers are OK, but they don't offer any gain / impedance setting for headphones so I have to turn the volume down to 15% (rather than 35 - 40% with the STX) to get a reasonable volume. If you forget to turn it down when switching from speaker mode, then your eardrums are blown out unless you have high impedance headphones (sounds familiar 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





). There's also no 3rd party software / drivers (such as Uni Xonar Drivers or XonarSwitch) available for this card at present so you're currently at the mercy of PowerColor / CMedia.


----------



## bcschmerker4

Thanks for the update on the new product.  Contact MaxedTech® to place a feature request for UNi XONAR® Audio Software™ 1.9, as the C-Media® CMI-8888DHT is already in a specific Asus® product, viz., the ROG® XONAR® Phoebus™; the Powercolor® Devil HDX™ may be supportable.


----------



## Steelpony89

Just wanted to perhaps pitch in with what I've experienced. Had a Xonar Essence ST installed with all kinds of different drivers in a Windows 7 64-bit machine, now Windows 10 64-bit.
 Had the screech since I started using the card, both operating systems.
  
 Get it almost exclusively while opening, skipping through or opening a youtube video.
 The last time I got this though I noticed that the youtube HTML 5 player seemed to crash in chrome and automatically changed to the old flashplayer just as the screech occured.
  
 Did not run "core parking" with windows 7, still got the noise though not as frequently as in Windows 10 IIRC.
  
 Like many of you I've been in contact with Asus to no avail, they blame it on a core problem in the Vista audio stack.


----------



## f0oster

If any of you are using ASIO, make sure you disable the output you are using in the Windows volume mixer and Audio device manager. This is so windows doesn't try to use the device while it is busy.
  
 I use Coax out (WASAPI, was using ASIO) for Foobar exclusively, and I swap to the USB input on my DAC for all my other tasks, such as YouTube, gaming etc..
  
 The above was the cause of the random loud ringing for me, and it hasn't happened once since I did what I mentioned above. Seems it's a bug in the drivers -- no surprise, ASUS truly are terrible with their drivers. The sound card driver doesn't like it when multiple applications/the windows volume mixer tries to take control of the hardware when it's supposed to be exclusively controlled by the ASIO driver.


----------



## trooper05

I know this might sound silly, but have you guys ran windows update, those of you who are getting screeching in YouTube? The YouTube screech has never happened  to me, but it was always when using Foobar or Jriver. I have always had the latest updates installed. 
  
 I'm surprised ASUS didn't fix this issue with the STX II and if it is a actual Vista audio stack issue why hasn't Microsoft fixed the issue?   
  
 Also those who uninstall the drivers should run this batch file afterwards and restart: 
  
 @ECHO Cleaning...
 @ECHO ON
 taskkill /im HsMgr64.exe /f
 taskkill /im HsMgr.exe /f
 taskkill /im AsusAudioCenter.exe /f
 taskkill /im MXmon.exe /f
 taskkill /f /fi "WindowTitle eq Hidden PCIX Main Window"
 taskkill /f /fi "WindowTitle eq Hidden PCI Main Window"
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\Cmicnfgp.ini.cfg
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\Cmicnfgp.ini.cfl
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\cmudaxp.ini
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\System\CmiFltr.dll
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\System\HsMgr64.exe
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\System\HsSrv64.dll
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\System\HsSrv642.dll
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\System\HdavFltr.dll
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\System\cmiHDAV.ini
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\System\CmiCnfgP.cpl
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\System32\CmiCnfgP.cpl
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\System32\CmiCnfgp.dll
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\System32\CmiFltr.dll
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\System32\cmudaxp.dll
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\System32\cmudaxp.sys
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\System32\CmiInstallResAll64.dll
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\System32\CmiInstallResAll.dll
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\SysWOW64\CmiCnfgp.dll
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\SysWOW64\CmiFltr.dll
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\system32\Cm_Oal.dll
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\system32\cmasiopx.dll
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\system32\cmasiop.dll
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\system32\cmasiopx.ini
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\system32\cmasiop.ini
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\system32\drivers\cmudaxp.sys
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\SysWOW64\Cm_Oal.dll
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\SysWOW64\cmasiop.dll
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\SysWOW64\cmasiop.ini
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\SysWOW64\HsMgr.exe
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\SysWOW64\HsSrv2.dll
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\SysWOW64\Cmpaoxy.dll
 DEL /F /Q %windir%\SysWOW64\VmixP8.dll
 Reg delete "hklm\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" /v Cmaudio8788 /f
 Reg delete "hklm\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" /v Cmaudio8788GX /f
 Reg delete "hklm\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" /v Cmaudio8788GX64 /f
 @ECHO Done cleaning...
  
 Save as a .bat file.


----------



## halcyon

undesirable said:


> Well I've got my Powercolor Devil HDX sound card now. Been running it for 4 days in Windows 10 without issue. The drivers are OK, but they don't offer any gain / impedance setting for headphones so I have to turn the volume down to 15% (rather than 35 - 40% with the STX) to get a reasonable volume. If you forget to turn it down when switching from speaker mode, then your eardrums are blown out unless you have high impedance headphones (sounds familiar
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 

 How do you find the multi-channel audio to headphone virtualization in 3D games (CS:GO, BF, COD, GTAV, etc)?

 Does it have accurate 3D positional sound via headphone when used in multi-channel sound mode?

 Thanks for any and all impressions!


----------



## bcschmerker4

undesirable said:


> ...Well I've got my Powercolor Devil HDX sound card now. Been running it for 4 days in Windows 10 without issue. The drivers are OK, but they don't offer any gain / impedance setting for headphones so I have to turn the volume down to 15% (rather than 35 - 40% with the STX) to get a reasonable volume. If you forget to turn it down when switching from speaker mode, then your eardrums are blown out unless you have high impedance headphones (sounds familiar
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
 Thanks for the progress report.  I'm currently on the hunt for headphones for my own XONAR® STX, and I'm after at least medium-Z (viz., ≥120Ω) and preferably something closer to 600Ω, as Zo=10.7Ω for the STX' Texas Instruments® TPA6120A2.  Same no-attenuator problem applies to the Creative Laboratories® SB1500 and SB1520 PCIe 3.0 x1 cards, which also REALLY want something better than 600Ω.


----------



## Booki

Since my post in this thread (few pages back) I have not even tried using my STX in fear of having that high pitched scream.
  
 Problem is, onboard sound just isn't cutting it. Its just not as nice on this cheaper mobo I have...
  
 Anybody have a alternative card that does NOT have this issue? Cause this issue in general is absolute rubbish.


----------



## rvcjew

booki said:


> Since my post in this thread (few pages back) I have not even tried using my STX in fear of having that high pitched scream.
> 
> Problem is, onboard sound just isn't cutting it. Its just not as nice on this cheaper mobo I have...
> 
> Anybody have a alternative card that does NOT have this issue? Cause this issue in general is absolute rubbish.


 
 Since using rev 2 of unixonar and now on rev 3 I have not had the screech. *UNi Xonar 1816/1823 v1.80a r3 *is the version you want, I also have test mode on windows enabled all the time as the watermark does not bug me and its flawless with installing it. http://maxedtech.com/asus-xonar-unified-drivers/ I'm also using the low latency cmedia panel option.


----------



## Booki

I have updated my drivers to the ones you posted and will give it a shot...if it happens again I think i might start looking for a new sound card.
  
 Not sure if you can adjust the amp gain on C-Panel though, or if i can have it on "hifi" mode as I like no effects on my audio.


----------



## rvcjew

booki said:


> I have updated my drivers to the ones you posted and will give it a shot...if it happens again I think i might start looking for a new sound card.
> 
> Not sure if you can adjust the amp gain on C-Panel though, or if i can have it on "hifi" mode as I like no effects on my audio.


 
 Hit start then type xonar and open the old panel then set your gain then close it and then close it again in your system tray so it stays low latency.


----------



## mindbomb

So I think there are at least one culprit here: The audio renderer of the application. Directsound, without using the GX feature, doesn't seem to be able to cause this. Wasapi, which is the newer interface, seems to be where this happens.


----------



## Suncatcher

I use the Xonar Essence STX since 2013.
  
 I only had this screaming noise two times because of lack of attention, when I left the card accidentally half-connected to the PCI slot—I have no computer case, motherboard is laying over a table and the cards are not secured to any structure or support—and when the noises happened, the computer would BSOD instantly. Since only the PCI slot on the motherboard is holding the cards I have, this mistake can happen fairly easy. This was in 2013 and after the fact, never happened again.
  
 So, I have never had the problems you guys describe. I'm still running Windows 7 x64 since I bought my Essence STX and have used original drivers till half of 2015, then discovered UNi Xonar and I have been using it ever since. No bugs, no screaming noises. The card is always generating sound 24/7 for 3 years—even when I sleep, on rain/wind sounds I run on the KRKs—and the card just works flawlessly, nonstop, with astonishing sound quality.
  
 I'm preparing backups to install Windows 10 this week and I will let you guys know if I start getting any problems, since on Windows 7 I have never had any.


----------



## Aray

This happens to me on Firefox when I'm watching either flash or html5 videos (not sure which). Just happened again today, actually. To stop the loud volume + ringing noise I just open Spotify and play a song and it immediately goes away.
  
 Nothing fancy here, just normal gaming headphones (Siberia v2) plugged into the headphone slot.


----------



## Sofacykel

sofacykel said:


> So I just created an account here to add to the discussion.
> 
> I've once had a Xonar Essence STX for a full year without it happening. T'was a good sound card, alas there were some issues here and there with it stop responding and whatnot. I liked the audio quality I got, so when it came to build a new PC I went straight for the Xonar Essence STX 2 (or II).
> 
> ...


 
  
 Happened again, luckily I was just done with a session of playing video games casually checking out some youtube clips on Reddit and had my headphones on the desk. I jumped and had a small heartattack. This is on a different driver than before (still official), another installation of Firefox (and a totally different version at that), I can't trust this device anymore and I'm putting it up for sale. I hope whoever gets it doesn't suffer from the same issues, maybe it's just my combination of hardware and software, maybe we all have something in common. All I know is that this is physically dangerous equipment capable of emitting very, _very_ loud noises, and that it sporadically will do that and it *will *damage your ears.
  
 Take my advice: Do not test your luck! Get rid of it ASAP and get another DAC. The sound quality simply is not worth the risk of damaging your hearing or getting tinnitus for life.
  
 Jesus ******* Christ on a bicycle, the money I pay and the **** I put up with. Thoroughly disappointed with this product for this sole reason. Cannot and will never recommend.


----------



## MajesticTwelve

sofacykel said:


> Take my advice: Do not test your luck! Get rid of it ASAP and get another DAC. The sound quality simply is not worth the risk of damaging your hearing or getting tinnitus for life.
> 
> Jesus ******* Christ on a bicycle, the money I pay and the **** I put up with. Thoroughly disappointed with this product for this sole reason. Cannot and will never recommend.


 
 Yeah, it's the only solution. I sold my Asus soundcard (for the same price that I bought it 5 years earlier ) and bought an external DAC with a headphone amplifier (Aune X1S) and I'm very happy with the sound quality.


----------



## Suncatcher

suncatcher said:


> I use the Xonar Essence STX since 2013.
> 
> I only had this screaming noise two times because of lack of attention, when I left the card accidentally half-connected to the PCI slot—I have no computer case, motherboard is laying over a table and the cards are not secured to any structure or support—and when the noises happened, the computer would BSOD instantly. Since only the PCI slot on the motherboard is holding the cards I have, this mistake can happen fairly easy. This was in 2013 and after the fact, never happened again.
> 
> ...


 
 So, I've installed Windows 10, running UNi Xonar Drivers. During the last 7 days I've watched many hours of YouTube Videos, used the seeking bar many times, lots of pause and resume actions, including in hour long videos. I've listened to many hours of music on Winamp, played loads of GTA Online and Rocket League using TeamSpeak. Switched many times between Headphone and Speaker outputs.
  
 I had zero problems with audio so far. Consistent high-quality audio on all inputs and outputs. Everything is working fine on Windows 10. It appears you guys might be having hardware level issues with your cards. In this case, I would most definitely buy a substitute and retire your current cards.
  
 If I have any problems in the future—I've never had any—I'll be reporting here in this thread.
 If you don't hear from me again, I'm not having any problems.


----------



## Undesirable

suncatcher said:


> If you don't hear from me again, I'm not having any problems.


 
 It'll happen again; mark my words. Give it a month or two. Windows 10 and Uni Xonar drivers made no difference to me.
  
 Although the solution I've switched to, the Powercolor Devil HDX 7.1, has its own problems: no headphone gain control so I have to turn the volume down to 15 - 30% and sometimes usually the card doesn't start up on warm reboots.
  
 My next computer audio solution will most definitely be external DAC + AMP.


----------



## Sofacykel

3rd or 4th message here, I just wanted to update you all on the fact that I've sold the card and thus will be withdrawing from the discussion.
  
 The reply I got from ASUS Support was so disheartening I just gave up. I wanted to recoup some of my cost and I sincerely hope whoever I sold it to won't experience any issues.
  
 I am now looking into an external DAC solution with seperate power supply for around 200$ (in Europe though) that'll satisfy my needs. Until then I stole the old and trusty Xonar U3 USB sound card I gave to my mum when I gave her my laptop, she'll have to deal with the absolutely horrid sound quality in my old Clevo P170EM for a short while now. The noise floor on the U3 is pretty high, but other than that it's... "serviceable" for the time being and hasn't given me any problems in the 2 or so years I've had it for the laptop.
  
 I suggest everyone experiencing these issues to get rid of the card immediately. If it happens once it will happen again. Mine did it 2-3 days in a row and then took a 3 month break from acting up at all only to suddenly sneak attack me out of the blue again on newer drivers with newer updates, though still skipping in a Youtube video for some reason... Simply put, the gain in sound quality on your everyday computer is not worth the risk of damaging your hearing out of the blue. It's a dangerous piece of equipment unless you got some really, absurdly high resistance cans.
  
 Have a good one everybody and be safe!


----------



## Suncatcher

undesirable said:


> It'll happen again; mark my words. Give it a month or two. Windows 10 and Uni Xonar drivers made no difference to me.


 

  
 Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Suncatcher* /img/forum/go_quote.gif
> 
> If I have any problems in the future*—I've never had any—*I'll be reporting here in this thread.


----------



## bcschmerker4

As of 15 February 2016 I'm looking at my options for the Hot Rod gPC (Advanced Micro Devices® Athlon64® X2 5600+ (Socket AM2), RS780G/SB710 chipset), which is coming due for a rebuild for Ubuntu® 16.04.0-LTS (16.01a2 is available for testing as I write this); afaik, the 6 kHz howl that has plagued the entire Asus® XONAR® series (C-Media® CMI-8788 DSP) under Microsoft® Windows® 6-up will not affect it under ALSA snd-virtuoso.  The Creative Laboratories® SB1550 (Creative Technology CA10300-IAT DSP) that I have been testing to date in the Hot Rod has a propensity for triggering hard lock-ups under all LinUX Kernels available for Ubuntu® 12.04._n_-LTS in the event of any hot-plugging, a problem that I never had with the SB0350 and probably will not have with the STX; so a swap comes into the question of what to do.  (The SB1550 should be fully supported in Windows 10.0.x as of 2016.)


----------



## Sofacykel

bcschmerker4 said:


> As of 15 February 2016 I'm looking at my options for the Hot Rod gPC (Advanced Micro Devices® Athlon64® X2 5600+ (Socket AM2), RS780G/SB710 chipset), which is coming due for a rebuild for Ubuntu® 16.04.0-LTS (16.01a2 is available for testing as I write this); afaik, the 6 kHz howl that has plagued the entire Asus® XONAR® series (C-Media® CMI-8788 DSP) under Microsoft® Windows® 6-up will not affect it under ALSA snd-virtuoso.  The Creative Laboratories® SB1550 (Creative Technology CA10300-IAT DSP) that I have been testing to date in the Hot Rod has a propensity for triggering hard lock-ups under all LinUX Kernels available for Ubuntu® 12.04._n_-LTS in the event of any hot-plugging, a problem that I never had with the SB0350 and probably will not have with the STX; so a swap comes into the question of what to do.  (The SB1550 should be fully supported in Windows 10.0.x as of 2016.)


 

 I don't think this issue will happen on Linux but who knows. I found that I missed the 3-step amplification settings from the Xonar Audio Center in Linux Mint (Or, missing the Audio Center completely as it's a Windows application). It seems all Xonar sound cards with various steps in amplification will default to the highest setting with the default driver, at least in Cinnamon Mint.
  
 It raised the noise floor too much for my measly cans and I didn't enjoy using it at all in Linux. I have a dial to adjust system volume on my keyboard and I accidentally hit it when reaching over, turning the volume up beyond comfort - Something it would've been incapable of if the amplification settings were set correct.
  
 It's a minor issue, but worth a mention. Switching between headphone out and speaker out works flawlessly out of the box though, absolutely no complaints.


----------



## JamesMay

I have a Xonar DX and I have a similar issue. Random, Loud... but its a White noise not Ringing or pitched.

 It can go days, weeks between these überloud Whitenoise attacks, the last one was today, but before that it was in January. My ears literally hurt after.
  
 I use Win10, 64 pro and Uni Xonar.
  
  
  
  
 Question, does the Output db change the loudness of the screech or does the screech somehow completely ignore it?


----------



## rvcjew

I believe the screech is just line lvl volume all the time. Did you try leaving your OS in test mode to see if it changed anything.


----------



## Sanctuary

suncatcher said:


> So, I've installed Windows 10, running UNi Xonar Drivers. During the last 7 days I've watched many hours of YouTube Videos, used the seeking bar many times, lots of pause and resume actions, including in hour long videos. I've listened to many hours of music on Winamp, played loads of GTA Online and Rocket League using TeamSpeak. Switched many times between Headphone and Speaker outputs.
> 
> I had zero problems with audio so far. Consistent high-quality audio on all inputs and outputs. Everything is working fine on Windows 10. It appears you guys might be having hardware level issues with your cards. In this case, I would most definitely buy a substitute and retire your current cards.
> 
> ...


 

 I highly doubt it's just hardware releated.  I have two STX.  One from 2012 and one from 2013.  I've used both of them in a Windows 7 64-bit PC and one in a WIndows 8.1 64-bit (now Windows 10) PC.  Both of them do this high pitched screeching ******** *when in the PC that's not Windows 7*, and neither do it while in it.  I also recently just upgraded to Windows 10 and did a fresh install only a week ago.  This **** is worse than ever.  It used to be that it only happened after marathon video watching sessions using MPHC, and only when I would let the player continuously play the next file in a folder.  It never, ever happened any other way.  Now however, I just got it from watching Netflix.  This has never happened before, and the only difference is that I have the updated Unified drivers and am using Windows 10.


----------



## bcschmerker4

sanctuary said:


> ...I have two STX.  One from 2012 and one from 2013.  I've used both of them in a Windows 7 64-bit PC and one in a WIndows 8.1 64-bit (now Windows 10) PC.  Both of them do this high pitched screeching ******** *when in the PC that's not Windows 7*, and neither do it while in it.  I also recently just upgraded to Windows 10 and did a fresh install only a week ago.  This **** is worse than ever.  It used to be that it only happened after marathon video watching sessions using MPHC, and only when I would let the player continuously play the next file in a folder.  It never, ever happened any other way.  Now however, I just got it from watching Netflix.  This has never happened before, and the only difference is that I have the updated Unified drivers and am using Windows 10.


 
 Thanks for the heads up on an obvious regression in the Microsoft® Windows® 10.0.x audio stack.  I found that any of a variety of OS events can start and stop the 6 kHz howl, thus the reconsideration of continued use of the STX in the CM1630 as upgraded.  I'll have to figure out a way to properly shield the Creative Laboratories® SB1550 PCIe 3.0 x1 audio card against the RFI from my EAH6850 DirectCU® video card; I've no satisfactory alternate slot for the SB1550, as any full-height PCI card at the base of the CM1630's case will choke the EAH6850 at the cooling-air supply.


----------



## mindbomb

I have noticed some things about this. First, I think this only happens with applications that use wasapi. I don't believe it happens with directsound (without GX enabled). Wasapi doesn't exist on windows xp, so perhaps one solution is to run your applications in windows xp compatibility mode or see if you can force it to use directsound some other way.
  
 The other thing I noticed is that it seems to have a ~1% chance to happen. So I was able to reproduce it somewhat by just continuously opening and closing my media player, which was mpc-hc using the internal audio renderer, which uses wasapi, and eventually it would surface. The interesting thing is that even while the noise was playing on the analog out, I had spdif out enabled as well, and that one was playing fine. So if you use an external dac with your xonar, I think you are immune.
  
 Drivers didn't seem to make any difference. I tried some uni drivers, some official asus drivers, and I think it's present in all drivers. I just used windows 7, so I don't know about newer OS.
  
 I also noticed that this doesn't happen on the xonar dg and xonar dgx, which use different processors. So I think this bug is specific to the asus av100 processor on the xonar d1, xonar dx, xonar st, and xonar stx. Possibly on some more cards I have missed.


----------



## bcschmerker4

*Update:*  The ASUS® XONAR® Essence™ STX™ is up and running in the Hot Rod gPC™ under Ubuntu® 16.03b2 Xenial Xerus™ as of 11 April 2016 and actually has more switchability than in either ASUS or MaxedTech® software under Microsoft® Windows® 6.n.xxxx.  No threat of howl at all - the 6 kHz scream is apparently unique to Windows 6-up and does not occur in ALSA.
  
 And to update @Sofacykel, the ALSA Mixer ncurses app can be accessed via GNOME® Terminal™, KDE® Konsole™, or equivalent; the latest revision of ALSA snd-virtuoso has four gain settings for the internal Texas Instruments® TPA6120A2 headphone amplifier, a gain adjustment for the Aux In four-pin header, S/P-DIF Output/Loopback/ValidityCheck switches, DAC Filter curve switch, Analog Output selector (Speakers, Headphones, or FP Headphones), and both Analog and Digital Input gains and mutes.


----------



## Rainjam

Had it happen today the first time. Just restarted my PC, suddenly that sound scared the **** out of me. Luckily I could turn down my speakers quickly. But oh wow, that was frightening. The card played fine for ~3 years, should I eventually get rid of it?


----------



## MajesticTwelve

rainjam said:


> Had it happen today the first time. Just restarted my PC, suddenly that sound scared the **** out of me. Luckily I could turn down my speakers quickly. But oh wow, that was frightening. The card played fine for ~3 years, should I eventually get rid of it?


 
 It's rather Windows 10 fault because I had it two times with my external USB DAC while watching youtube videos. Fortunately it wasn't as loud as with my previous Asus D1 soundcard. I noticed it always starts with muted audio in video, then white noise.


----------



## bcschmerker4

rainjam said:


> Had it happen today the first time. Just restarted my PC, suddenly that sound scared the **** out of me. Luckily I could turn down my speakers quickly. But oh wow, that was frightening. The card played fine for ~3 years, should I eventually get rid of it?


 
  
  


majestictwelve said:


> It's rather Windows 10 fault because I had it two times with my external USB DAC while watching youtube videos. Fortunately it wasn't as loud as with my previous Asus D1 soundcard. I noticed it always starts with muted audio in video, then white noise.


 
  
 Indeed the Microsoft® Windows® 10.0._n_ audio stack has a regression from 7.0.8001/6.1.7601, which is the reason for puiling the STX from my Asus® CM1630-06 as upgraded and substituting a Creative Laboratories® SB1550, as the Creative CA10300-IAT is not affected by this regression.  The STX has a new home in my Hot Rod gPC and so far I've only had side benefits in ALSA 1.0.25 while fine-tuning the Hot Rod under Ubuntu® 16.04rc (LinUX Kernel 4.4.0-18-generic as of 17 April 2016) - ALSAmixer has access to features of the AV-100 DSP not even available in MaxedTech® UNi™ XONAR® Audio Software™ 1.90.


----------



## mindbomb

even within windows, it only affects applications that use the wasapi api. And spdif output is immune. And only the av100 soundcards are affected, so the xonar dgx is also immune.
  
 So if i had to speculate, something about wasapi makes the av100 not convert to i2s properly for the input to the dac.


----------



## powerincarnate

I have had this problem for a while now.  It use to be very infrequent, but not it is happening much more frequently.  I can't remember if it happened in Windows 7, but my guess is it did.  It definitely happens under windows 10.  It also seems to be even lounder now, the last two times were really really loud.  It even happened to me last night.  I went to sleep and the computer didn't fully go to sleep because of some things running in the back ground... well around 3 am, I heard the very loud sound again.  Again, I heard the sound while sleeping 15 feet away, despite the sound coming through my headphones, that's how loud it was. 
  
 prior to the STX, I had a Xonar Xense, and I don't ever recall that happening, and was wondering if I should try it.  I didn't sell the Xense so I still have it hear.  Any thoughts??
  
 I thought the issue was the opp amps that I swapped in and was going to put in the original lm4562's back in, but after reading this thread, it appears some windows driver issue is the problem.


----------



## Aray

Literally just happened again. I've been using the UNi drivers but sadly the problem still persists. This is absolutely ridiculous. Never going back to an ASUS product regardless, their Essence STX drivers make it clear they don't care about their products.
  
 Normally I'd say screw it and 'downgrade' to Windows 7 but the hassle..


----------



## bcschmerker4

powerincarnate said:


> I have had this problem for a while now.  It use to be very infrequent, but not it is happening much more frequently.  I can't remember if it happened in Windows 7, but my guess is it did.  It definitely happens under windows 10.  It also seems to be even lounder now, the last two times were really really loud.  It even happened to me last night.  I went to sleep and the computer didn't fully go to sleep because of some things running in the back ground... well around 3 am, I heard the very loud sound again.  Again, I heard the sound while sleeping 15 feet away, despite the sound coming through my headphones, that's how loud it was.
> 
> prior to the STX, I had a Xonar Xense, and I don't ever recall that happening, and was wondering if I should try it.  I didn't sell the Xense so I still have it hear.  Any thoughts??
> 
> I thought the issue was the opp amps that I swapped in and was going to put in the original lm4562's back in, but after reading this thread, it appears some windows driver issue is the problem.


 
  


aray said:


> Literally just happened again. I've been using the UNi drivers but sadly the problem still persists. This is absolutely ridiculous. Never going back to an ASUS product regardless, their Essence STX drivers make it clear they don't care about their products.
> 
> Normally I'd say screw it and 'downgrade' to Windows 7 but the hassle..


 
 Just as I suspected:  A regression in the Windows 10 audio stack.  I don't remember running WASAPI in the Asus® CM1630-06 as upgraded, is the thing, but OS events turned the 6 kHz howl on and off.  Microsoft Corporation has made Win 10 partial to Intel® High Definition Audio™, so it is possible that the Creative Labs® SB1550 (Creative Technology CA10300-IAT) and SB1570 (Realtek® ALC899) might run reliably where the OS is fighting the C-Media® CMI-8788 driver(s).  I've no problems to date with the STX under Ubuntu® 16.04.0-LTS, and ALSA has more controls in snd-virtuoso than the C-Media drivers have in any of Win 6._n_ or 10.0.


----------



## mindbomb

So yea, I don't know if we are talking about the same issue. But the full scale noise bug happens with the asus av100 processor and applications that use wasapi as the audio interface. It won't happen on linux or windows xp because wasapi doesn't exist on those operating systems. It also doesn't happen with the optical out, if you want to use an external dac. Also, the cards with the actual cmi8788 processor and not the asus processor actually work with wasapi for some reason. It's like they didn't copy the chip exactly but forgot to account for that in the drivers.


----------



## Stalkholm

Just created an account so I can participate in this discussion!  
   
 I'm (almost) glad to see that I'm not the only one having this problem.  I've fought driver installations and audio settings and running in compatibility mode to no avail, thinking this whole time that I had severely messed something up.  It's nice to know that this isn't my fault, for a change.    
  
 I've seen the suggestion of using an external DAC through the optical-out, I've got a Turtle Beach Ear Force DSS 7.1, would that work?  If not, could someone offer a suggestion for something that would?  
   
 While we're on the subject: Would I still get the benefit of custom settings in my Uni Xonar drivers if I installed a DAC, or would it be a bitstream?  
   
 I'm sure I have more questions to ask, but for the moment I'm just giddy to find out that there is a known cause to these issues.  Maybe it's dumb, but "Sir the giant lump in your side is cancer." is somehow more reassuring than "Sir the giant lump in your side has no known cause or potential treatments."


----------



## BBr0ck

Hi everyone.
  
 This issue happened to me last night for the third or fourth time since january. I'm using an Asus Essence STX II, using studio monitor on balanced outputs - Win 10 x64. It happened lately either with the standard Asus driver or the UNi Xonar STXII 11.5 v1.80b r3.
  
 Like many of you here, the ultra loud screeching noise only occured when skipping some random video on youtube (Firefox); it's totally random and quite frightening.
  
 I bought the card in october 2014 (release), was on Win7 and never had the issue before I installed Win10.


----------



## F4NAT

Essence STX here too. And I think, I know the Problem very well. Unsuspectingly you're clicking through Videos, as you suddenly get raped by a *Krrrrrrrrrk EEEEEEEEE!!!!!!*
 The solution for me is to unregister the asio drivers. This is how to do that:
  
_- Press the Windows-Key_
_- Type: cmd_
_- Hold CTRL+SHIFT and press ENTER_
  
*------------ 64bit ------------*
_- Type: regsvr32 /u "%SystemRoot%\System32\cmasiopx.dll"_
_- Type: regsvr32 /u "%SystemRoot%\SysWOW64\cmasiop.dll"_
_- Press Enter._
  
  
*------------ 32bit ------------*
_- Type: regsvr32 /u "%SystemRoot%\System32\cmasiop.dll"_
_- Press Enter_
  
  
 I created a small batch file as a one-click solution, but the Forum don't want me to attach it to this post. Not even zipped.


Spoiler: So I need to paste the code:



_@echo off & whoami /groups /nh | find "S-1-16-12288" > nul ||(
  echo createObject("shell.application"^).shellExecute"%~s0",,,"runas"^&createObject("scripting.filesystemObject"^).getFile("%tmp%\.vbs"^).delete > "%tmp%\.vbs"
  start "" "%tmp%\.vbs" & exit
 )_
_wmic cpu get addresswidth | find "64" &&(_
_    regsvr32 /u "%SystemRoot%\System32\cmasiopx.dll"
     regsvr32 /u "%SystemRoot%\SysWOW64\cmasiop.dll"
  )||(
     regsvr32 /u "%SystemRoot%\System32\cmasiop.dll"
 )_
_timeout 5 > nul_
  


  
 Create the file: _STX_Eeeek-Fix.txt_ and paste the code into it. Save, close and rename it to: _STX_Eeeek-Fix.*cmd*_  then execute the file.
  
  
 Hope it works for you guys as well.
 I recommend to remove the GX-Feature also. You will find it in Windows autorun and it can disabled by using tools like CCleaner or Autoruns. Or the Windows-Taskmanager, if you run Windows 10. The relevant entry should be named: _Cmaudio8788GX(64)_. And should link to: _HsMgr(64).exe_. It's not related with the Problem described here for me. But I've experienced trouble with some programs, even if the GX-button is not marked in the Xonar-Center. And practicaly, it's useless anyways.


----------



## BBr0ck

Hey. I'll give your solution a try and do extended tests using earplugs  Thanks.
 Any idea what is causing this in the first place and why unregistering asio could help ?


----------



## F4NAT

I don't know which part of the driver exactly could trigger this behaviour. But I think it's also limited to a bunch of systems.
 I just can say, that my STX got this problem from very first moment and from Win 7-10 (Board/CPU didn't change). And I always thought this is due to my overclocking or a little issue with my personal card. How ever, some day I started to modify the official Asus driver setup, just because I'd want to strip it down to the very basic needs of mine. So ASIO, GX and some other stuff done by the standard-setup, didn't even got installed on my machine. A very long time the problem didn't appear and I thought it's gone for any unknown reason.
  
 Way later I registered the asio drivers for a testing session and forgot to unregister it after.
 Some shocking krrrrrk eeeeeee-moments later I went crazy and asked my self: What did I do that this old mate suddenly thinks we could get friends again?!?!
 It took me a while until I remembered of the asio driver registering. Unregistered it and... silence! - So good luck to you and all others.


----------



## Aray

just randomly did it again now.
  
 it sounded like a jumbled mess for half a second before emitting a high pitch noise (imagine flashbang on CS)
  
 i cant believe asus cant do anything about this. ill try your fix F4NAT


----------



## techboy

Did anybody try the fix?


----------



## Aray

techboy said:


> Did anybody try the fix?


 
  
 i applied it, ill let you guys know if it happens again


----------



## warhead0

I believe I'm having the same issues with my Xonar STX.

 My issue does seem to be triggered by youtube, and is quite a rare event.

 Don't mind me just want update notifications for this thread. I'm very interested in this potential fix.


----------



## mindbomb

welp, i've witnessed it happening in directsound now, in addition to wasapi. So it's not as api specific as I thought it was.
  
 At any rate, spdif output is safe. Still seems to only affect asus cards that use the asus processors; the ones with official cmedia processors are also safe for some reason.
  
 So there is a fix in the sense that you can use an external spdif dac in conjunction with the xonar, but using digital output sorta defeats the purpose of an expensive sound card.
  
 Another thought I had is that the driver seems to have more trouble installing on windows 7 sp1 than windows 7. Maybe that is also a factor somehow?


----------



## TetraSky

f4nat said:


> Essence STX here too. And I think, I know the Problem very well. Unsuspectingly you're clicking through Videos, as you suddenly get raped by a *Krrrrrrrrrk EEEEEEEEE!!!!!!*
> The solution for me is to unregister the asio drivers. This is how to do that:
> 
> _- Press the Windows-Key_
> ...


 
 Signed up just to say that this didn't work for me, unfortunately.
  
 I applied this fix a couple days ago and that horrible screeching happened again just a couple minutes ago. Thankfully I wasn't wearing my headphones at the time...
 It happened when I tried to open Steam, but my drive was locked(bitlocker, forgot to enable auto unlock) at the time so windows's default notification sound("windows background.wav") played out to warn me, then the sound glitched out for some reason and the screeching happened. Pretty much every times that it happens for me, it's related to windows's default sounds. Though it did happen two or three times, where it happened while I was seeking in a video.


----------



## Menasor

Ugh I finally found a thread that talked about this screeching problem! Definitely started when I upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10. I tried applying the fix just now so let's see if it works for me. I guess another solution is to use the spdif out? Right now I'm using the RCA outputs into my Emotiva speakers. I guess I'll have to get a digital analog converter from Monoprice or something: http://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=6884. Really sad since I love this sound card


----------



## BBr0ck

Hello.
  
 Meneasor, I tried the cheap DAC solution with the spdif output for a few days, but the sound was really crappy (you loose everything from the soundcard so even the internal audio chipset of your motherboard would be better I think - an alternative would be an expensive and hifi dac but...).
  
 So alternatively I ordered a passive studio monitor to put between my STX II and my Event 20/20 monitors (Palmer pro Monicon) : the idea was to see if the line level volume screeching would be stopped by this device, preventing the ultra loud sound to go right from the card to the monitor (it works and make the distortion bearable).
  
 I also applied the asio fix and skipped into youtube video _extensively_, until the bug occured again... As I said before It only occured to me when skipping videos on youtube (html5 + firefox x64 + win10 x64) and never before when i was on win7 with the exact same rig.
  
 I'm trying firefox with html 5 desactivated to see if it happens again with the flash player. I also muted system sounds in the volume mixer.


----------



## mindbomb

You can still get the digital effects over spdif (by checking spdif out: pcm in the asus panel and leaving Speakers - Asus Xonar as the audio device). So things like dolby headphone, the equalizer, the resampler, the volume normalizer, GX for legacy gaming. So it's still better than nothing I'd say. The main draw being dolby headphone imo.


----------



## Aray

mindbomb said:


> welp, i've witnessed it happening in directsound now, in addition to wasapi. So it's not as api specific as I thought it was.
> 
> At any rate, spdif output is safe. Still seems to only affect asus cards that use the asus processors; the ones with official cmedia processors are also safe for some reason.
> 
> ...


 
  
 disappointing. it hasn't happened to me yet but it'll probably do it again in a week or two.
  
 this is mind boggling, why isnt ASUS doing anything about this?


----------



## bcschmerker4

mindbomb said:


> welp, i've witnessed it happening in directsound now, in addition to wasapi. So it's not as api specific as I thought it was.
> 
> At any rate, spdif output is safe. Still seems to only affect asus cards that use the asus processors; the ones with official cmedia processors are also safe for some reason.
> 
> ...


 

 In fact, with Service Pack 1 (Kernel 6.1.7601), I was only able to install the UNi™ XONAR® Audio Software successfully in Safe Mode on the CM1630 (same problem applies to the official Asus® XONAR® Audio Software™); a reboot after failed install BSOD'ed for an out-of-sync Power State condition more often than not.


----------



## Aray

i contacted ASUS and they said they can't do much about it because they can't recreate it. if you guys have any idea how to get it to happen more consistently let me know and let ASUS know


----------



## BBr0ck

aray said:


> i contacted ASUS and they said they can't do much about it because they can't recreate it. if you guys have any idea how to get it to happen more consistently let me know and let ASUS know


 

 I can make it happen very quickly by madly skipping through youtube videos (win10x64 - firefox x64 - html5). But as I said before, i disabled html5 and had no issue since then. I can also confirm that the passive studio monitor I installed between the sound card and the speakers works and give volume control on the issue.


----------



## Menasor

bbr0ck said:


> I can make it happen very quickly by madly skipping through youtube videos (win10x64 - firefox x64 - html5). But as I said before, i disabled html5 and had no issue since then. I can also confirm that the passive studio monitor I installed between the sound card and the speakers works and give volume control on the issue.


 
 You disabled html5 for everything? This issue has happened multiple times this week already


----------



## BBr0ck

I disabled html5 for youtube with an extension, in Firefox only. Never got the issue somewhere else (the screeching never happened on Twitch for example - and I watch this channel a lot - or anywhere else but youtube). So it seemed to be a good start to investigate.
  
  
 There is a recent thread on Reddit about this problem here, with a microsoft guy asking for some traces :
 https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/4gis49/asus_xonar_stx_6khz_squealing/


----------



## Aray

bbr0ck said:


> I can make it happen very quickly by madly skipping through youtube videos (win10x64 - firefox x64 - html5). But as I said before, i disabled html5 and had no issue since then. I can also confirm that the passive studio monitor I installed between the sound card and the speakers works and give volume control on the issue.


 
 i encourage you to submit this to asus. i dont think we should let up.


----------



## BBr0ck

aray said:


> i encourage you to submit this to asus. i dont think we should let up.


 

 I did and received a laconic response, asking me to try Chrome and/or reinstall the driver ... and some more similar bs advices...


----------



## Aray

bbr0ck said:


> I did and received a laconic response, asking me to try Chrome and/or reinstall the driver ... and some more similar bs advices...


 
 you should reply back saying you did all of that and link them to this thread
  
 the guy i ended up contacting said asus is aware of this issue but they cant reproduce it so its hard for them to do much about it. html5 doesnt really trigger it for me so im not even sure how to do it myself.


----------



## BBr0ck

aray said:


> you should reply back saying you did all of that and link them to this thread
> 
> the guy i ended up contacting said asus is aware of this issue but they cant reproduce it so its hard for them to do much about it. html5 doesnt really trigger it for me so im not even sure how to do it myself.


 

 Done.


----------



## BBr0ck

bbr0ck said:


> Done.


 

 Even more stupid and useless answer from Asus support, telling me to just rma the card...


----------



## bcschmerker4

The 6 kHz scream is a problem that, I suspect, requires a very specific set of circumstances to reproduce it.  From my own experience with the XONAR® STX™ in the ASUS® CM1630-06 as upgraded under Microsoft® Windows® 7.0.8001 (Kernel 6.1.7601), even Open Program signals will be enough to trigger it on a "bad hair day" (to quote a fashion term) with a sound (e.g., Navigation%20Start.wav) assigned to Open Program in Windows Sounds.  (The Creative Laboratories® SB1550 currently in the CM1630-06 as of 30 June 2016 is apparently immune to the problem.)


----------



## racofer

Just had this issue happening again twice this week, after over two months without incidents. My ears are still ringing.
  
 I guess I will just go back to onboard audio until either a fix is released or I find another sound card that is not based on the c-media chip. Although, I'm quite sure it's an issue exclusive to Asus cards.
  
 I just hope anyone considering an Asus sound card becomes aware of this issue before purchasing them. Their cards are dangerous for your hearing health.


----------



## wimderammelaere

I also had this issue in the past.
 This issue always seemed to start when my cpu is idling and I start some audio or video clip, so I think the issue is partially power supply-related.
  
 The following steps solved the issue:
 1) make sure that the soundcard power supply is correctly connected
 Allthough the soundcard contains a detection for low power, it didn't detect the bad connection. I detected the bad connection, by connecting a cheap led fan (e.g. Antec TriCool 80mm fan) on the same cables and by rambling the cable. By replacing the molex cable with a cable with a better fitting molex connector, the reoccurrence lessened of the loud noise.
 2) make sure that the Link State Power Management setting in Power Options in Windows is set to off
 3) set the sampling speed in the Asus Audio Center to 44100 kHz
 and set the default format to 44100 kHz in Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound > Tab page Advanced
 I also disabled Exclusive mode, but i didn't test yet if this caused this loud noise.
  
 Setting the audio to 16bit or 24bit doesn't seem to cause any issue.
  
 It has been along time since I have had this issue, so I guess it is resolved.


----------



## wimderammelaere

I think the issue with firefox is due to this application not using by default the Windows channel api.
 You can fix this by setting media.useAudioChannelAPI to true in about:config.
 This will lessen the reoccurrence of the loud noise. My guess is that when you use the audio channel api, you use the default format of your sound card (44100 kHz), unless you actually changed it at Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound > Tab page Advanced.
  
 The proper solution is allthough to set the sampling rating to 44100 kHz and check that the power is properly connected to your soundcard and the power setting of Link State Power Management is set to Off and then you don't have to bother with that setting. You might also have to set exclusive mode to Off.
  
 Updating to Firefox 48.0 or higher also removed the crashing during audio/video playback (probably fixed due to new media parser, written in Rust).


----------



## kittinzaa

My STX have exactly same problem its happen twice today still not sure what causing it.
 but when it happen i have to close Chrome then open any music from Foobar then the noise will gone.


----------



## mindbomb

So, I updated to windows 10, and installed asus's windows 10 driver, and this problem seems to have gone away. First thing I noticed was how much smoother the driver install process was than on windows 7 sp1 - on win 10, it found the sound card immediately with no fuss and had no trouble installing. Second, a few audio applications that were broken on windows 7, like exclusive mode in the internal audio renderer in mpc-hc, started working in windows 10. And lastly, I opened and closed ~500 consecutive instances of wasapi audio on windows 10 to check for random noise bugs, and it didn't appear.


----------



## bcschmerker4

Thanks for the update; Microsoft Corporation must have fixed part of the audio stack in the July major update to Windows 10.0.10576.  Dist-upgrading the ASUS® CM1630-06 lost me only two background apps; ASUSTeK Computer's SmartDoctor GPU-tuner application don't run on Win 6.2 and later, so GPU Tweak II went in along with an AMD Radeon HD legacy driver for the EAH6850 DirectCU to replace the original video driver.
  
 The XONAR® is happier in Ubuntu® 16.04.1-LTS than under Windows 6.1.7601 - ALSA snd-virtuoso does more with the card than the C-Media® CMI-8788 Win 6-up drivers.  Conversely, the Creative Laboratories® SB1550 is happier with the correct drivers in Win 10 (available from Creative Support) than with a carryover driver originally meant for the CT4830/SB0090/SB0240/SB0350 family in ALSA.


----------



## Aray

I haven't experienced the problem since June. I used this:
 http://www.head-fi.org/t/494565/xonar-essense-stx-random-loud-high-pitched-ringing-noise/195#post_12612511
  
 But I can't confirm or deny whether it made a difference or not.
  
 If the above post is true (about the new Windows update to the audio stack) then that's great news.


----------



## justtesting

Unfortunately I've tried the fix above to disable asio drivers, so as prevent GX components from loading with windows but it didn't fix the problem (so as disabling pci-e link energy management). On my offending system, other than the usual loss of the right channel that was fixable with a driver restart, the banshee scream only started on a very regular basis (maybe >6 times a week, sometimes twice a day, with some odd 2 week intervals) after 5 years when I moved to W10. Before it did happen probably once under W7 or W8.1, can't remember.
  
 Since then, I had to replace that Asus DX (sorry, not a relevant STX, but suffers the same) with an OEM SB Z for 2 channel analog output. That one, on the other hand, seems to suffer ocasional pops even when not playing anything, but what's curious about that, is that it happens to be an HD Audio compatible device and the same happens with an onboard realtek on another system.
  
 Now that W10 RS1 is out, has there been any change for other users? Only mindbomb seems to have reported an improvement. If I find the courage to put it to use again in another W10 RS1 system I'll report back.
  
 Edit: Sorry, wrong user name.


----------



## Aray

^--- in what situations do you get the ear wrecking noise?


----------



## justtesting

The same as in most posts before, it seems to happen randomly when a sound is initialized. This can be right after starting or seeking a clip in mpc-hc (dsound), a song in winamp (dsound), or a clip in youtube via chrome. Also happened once inside a game menu after clicking a button that causes its GUI to play a sound. Re-seeking, stopping and press play again, etc, will stop the white noise.


----------



## TetraSky

Just had it happen again. On Windows 10's RS1 (Anniversary update). I resumed a video(flash, not html5) I was watching and the screech of death blasted through my headphones.(while I was wearing them)
 So I think it's safe to assume that this is still not fixed in Windows and that the fix from before either doesn't work or was undone after the update for some reason. (re-applied it, will see... didn't have it happen to me since my last past when I last said the fix had failed, so maybe it helps? I dunno..)


----------



## bcschmerker4

> Originally Posted by *TetraSky*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
*Standing corrected* - I yanked the XONAR® from the CM1630 prior to the dist-upgrade from 7.0.8001 to 10.0.10576, so have no way to test it for myself.


----------



## justtesting

tetrasky said:


> Just had it happen again. On Windows 10's RS1 (Anniversary update). I resumed a video(flash, not html5) I was watching and the screech of death blasted through my headphones.(while I was wearing them)
> So I think it's safe to assume that this is still not fixed in Windows and that the fix from before either doesn't work or was undone after the update for some reason. (re-applied it, will see... didn't have it happen to me since my last past when I last said the fix had failed, so maybe it helps? I dunno..)


 
  
 If you redo the tweak, I guess regsvr32 should pop an error if those dlls still remain unregistered from the previous fix, other than unregistering them again.


----------



## racofer

Curious question: is this problem specific to the AV100 chips? From some pages back I've read some claims that the CMI8786, found on other Asus cards, did not present this issue.
  
 Also, I've tested with unregistering the ASIO drivers, but the issue persisted.


----------



## justtesting

That's curious. I've only seen reports in this and uniXonar's thread with STX/II, D1/DX*, all sharing the same Oxygen HD CMI8788 with AV100 label. I wouldn't be surprised if it also affects D2/D2X (AV200, also on the HDAV1.3
 ), but strangely I didn't notice any report on that card (other than another problem related to constant distortion or buzzing noise), or even the DG (CMI8786) or DS (AV66). Please correct me if wrong.
  
 *This also removes any chance for a PLX bridge problem


----------



## TetraSky

racofer said:


> Curious question: is this problem specific to the AV100 chips? From some pages back I've read some claims that the CMI8786, found on other Asus cards, did not present this issue.
> 
> Also, I've tested with unregistering the ASIO drivers, but the issue persisted.


 
   





> ---------------------------
> RegSvr32
> ---------------------------
> DllUnregisterServer in C:\WINDOWS\System32\cmasiopx.dll succeeded.
> ...


 

  
 That's what pop up when I redo the fix. Same thing if I redo it 20 times, it always says that, no error ever pop up. Not sure if it's actually unregistered it or not, but I can't open the Asus ASIO option in any case.


----------



## justtesting

Sorry for misguiding you then. I assumed it'd pop an error if already unregistered, haven't used regsvr much lately.


----------



## Aray

I'm trying to spam pause/play on flash videos, youtube, and windows sounds but I can't trigger this screech anymore. Any specific sites that often trigger it for you guys?


----------



## justtesting

If that helps, I've seen the issue most often with MPC-HC (Dsound output), either starting or seeking a video. But then again, it could be twice a day or once a week.


----------



## BBr0ck

bbr0ck said:


> [...] So alternatively I ordered a passive studio monitor to put between my STX II and my Event 20/20 monitors (Palmer pro Monicon) : the idea was to see if the line level volume screeching would be stopped by this device, preventing the ultra loud sound to go right from the card to the monitor (it works and make the distortion bearable).
> 
> I also applied the asio fix and skipped into youtube video _extensively_, until the bug occured again... As I said before It only occured to me when skipping videos on youtube (html5 + firefox x64 + win10 x64) and never before when i was on win7 with the exact same rig.
> 
> I'm trying firefox with html 5 desactivated to see if it happens again with the flash player. I also muted system sounds in the volume mixer.


 
  
 Since my last post, I have not experienced the screeching again. It was quite easy for me to make it happens while skipping madly through a Youtube *html5* video with Firefox but it never happened with Mpc-hc or Aimp, both using Directsound. I have not installed Win10 AU so my config right now is running with Win10 ver. 1511 build 10586.545 - Uni xonar driver 7.0.11.5 with PCM 192khz settings and Firefox 48 with an addon called _Youtube Flash Switch_ to avoid using html5. I also keep system sounds muted in the volume mixer.
  
 Still I now have a passive studio monitor under my hand with a mute 'panic' button, but even if the screech happens again, it avoid the line volume level sound to reach the monitors and give you control on its volume.


----------



## Aray

just happened again when someone messaged me on steam. it hadn't happened for a long time too. oh boy.
  
 W10 Vers 1607 (Build 14393.82)
 UNi Xonar Drivers


----------



## TetraSky

Happened once more yesterday for me. It triggered when a friend messaged me on Trillian and the notification sound played (not windows's, but Trillian's sound)
  
 Since the last time it had happened, I had reinstalled the latest Uni driver, re-applied the "fix" posted before, stopped GX entirely from booting up with windows along with a few other things, just to make sure it wasn't the RS1 update that had reset some settings... Quite frankly, I'm just about ready to sell my card and buy something like an external DAC.
  
 Windows 10 Pro RS1 (Anniversary Update)
 UNi Xonar 1816/1823 v1.80a r3


----------



## Aray

tetrasky said:


> Happened once more yesterday for me. It triggered when a friend messaged me on Trillian and the notification sound played (not windows's, but Trillian's sound)
> 
> Since the last time it had happened, I had reinstalled the latest Uni driver, re-applied the "fix" posted before, stopped GX entirely from booting up with windows along with a few other things, just to make sure it wasn't the RS1 update that had reset some settings... Quite frankly, I'm just about ready to sell my card and buy something like an external DAC.
> 
> ...




I was also thinking of selling mine but I'd feel way too guilty doing so because I know it would happen to the person I sell it to. We've essentially got what are now faulty soundcards from Asus's ex-flagship. Pretty sad.


----------



## bcschmerker4

My experience indicates a basic incompatibility with the Vista audio stack rather than a fundamental hardware flaw with the C-Media® DSP at the heart of the XONAR - I have been running my ASUS® XONAR® Essence STX in a LinUX 4.4 installation and have encountered no internal-feedback issues under Advanced LinUX Sound Architecture Project driver snd-virtuoso 1.0.27, unlike the rare and impossible-to-predict 6 kHz scream with the C-Media® CMI-8788 Drivers under Microsoft® Windows® 6.1.760_n_ (I sent a Creative Laboriatories® SB1550 in for the STX prior to dist-upgrading the CM1630, the STX' previous home, to 10.0.10586.420).  In fact, snd-virtuoso has been running the STX' CMI-8788 in LinUX 4.4 the same way Creative's drivers used to work the SB0240 and SB0350 in Microsoft® Windows® 5.2._nnnn_, and there are no records of complaints of the 6 kHz scream from Win2K or XP users.


----------



## Aray

While that may be true, ASUS's Xonar STX specs state:
  
 Operating System
Windows® 10 
 Windows® 8.1 
 Windows® 8 
 Windows® 7 
 Windows® XP

 Now, I never had a problem on 7...only 10, but even then it's advertised as working with all of the above.


----------



## MajesticTwelve

I have a similar problem with my external USB DAC (Aune X1S) and Creative Audigy 4, so this problem is not limited to Asus' cards and it's rather Windows 10's fault. It's not as bad as with Xonar D1 I had before (there's just sudden silence or short weird noise, which could also be loud but I use an additional volume slider so can't really tell if it was extremely loud) and only happened once or twice (also occured during watching YouTube video).


----------



## justtesting

majestictwelve said:


> I have a similar problem with my external USB DAC (Aune X1S) and Creative Audigy 4, so this problem is not limited to Asus' cards and it's rather Windows 10's fault. It's not as bad as with Xonar D1 I had before (there's just sudden silence or short weird noise, which could also be loud but I use an additional volume slider so can't really tell if it was extremely loud) and only happened once or twice (also occured during watching YouTube video).


 
  
 Well, I've never had a banshee scream in these 8 months after replacing the DX (that was causing it very often) with a Sounblaster Z OEM in the same system last December.
  
 On another computer where I'm reticent to place that DX, I'm currently using an old Audigy 2 (pretty similar to that 4 driver-wise) with latest Audigy Rx drivers for Windows 10 th2. You just need to decompress the SBA5_PCDRV_L11_3_01_0046.exe setup, and install them manually on your Audigy 4 via Device Manager. At least, nothing similar has happened.


----------



## MajesticTwelve

justtesting said:


> On another computer where I'm reticent to place that DX, I'm currently using an old Audigy 2 (pretty similar to that 4 driver-wise) with latest Audigy Rx drivers for Windows 10 th2. You just need to decompress the SBA5_PCDRV_L11_3_01_0046.exe setup, and install them manually on your Audigy 4 via Device Manager. At least, nothing similar has happened.


 
  
 I've already installed these drivers because they are also officially released for the Audigy 4  I don't remember if these problem occured before or after that installation.


----------



## justtesting

OT: Now that you mention it, there's also that SBA4_SII_PCDRV_L02_3_01_0046.exe for the Audigy 4 II/Pro with updated drivers I forgot, which I presume you're using. How can you access it via the main site instead of a direct google? If I go to this link, the Audigy 4's only have W7 drivers (like this). But if I google for that exe, then I get this page with a W10 driver for the Audigy Pro. Thanks!
  
 Edit: Nvm, it's via the W10 Software Availability Chart direct links. Doh!
  
 Edit2: Btw I mentioned that set of drivers for Audigy, because with the previous W10 Rx release drivers I've had BSODS with looped audio (almost banshee like too!) caused by the Audigy 2. It was possible to reproduce them if I had music or a video open, and then switched to another Windows User account without logging out while it was playing sound.


----------



## MajesticTwelve

justtesting said:


> OT: Now that you mention it, there's also that SBA4_SII_PCDRV_L02_3_01_0046.exe for the Audigy 4 II/Pro with updated drivers I forgot, which I presume you're using. How can you access it via the main site instead of a direct google? If I go to this link, the Audigy 4's only have W7 drivers (like this). But if I google for that exe, then I get this page with a W10 driver for the Audigy Pro. Thanks!
> 
> Edit: Nvm, it's via the W10 Software Availability Chart direct links. Doh!


 

 I chose Audigy 4 (I have a normal version, not Pro) and the drivers are there. Audigy 4 Pro uses a better DAC but there are no new drivers for this model because the new Audigy Rx and Audigy 4 II uses the same DSP (E-MU CA10300) as my old Audigy 4 and it's the reason they still release the drivers for the 12 years old Audigy 4  Audigy 4 Pro/Audigy 2 ZS on the other hand were better cards but the last drivers are from 2010 and they are no longer supported. If you look at the chart you mentioned there are no Win10 drivers for Audigy 4 Pro/Audigy 2 ZS.


----------



## Aray

Probably a long shot considering people who don't have this problem wouldn't be viewing this thread, but does anyone have this soundcard + windows 10 without the deafening screech issue?
  
 I also wonder if those of us who have the issue have similar PC parts...


----------



## kittinzaa

Right now I'm so afraid to use headphone what I've treid is its happen on Firefox,Chrome or even a video player my suspect is it might be the windows problem becuase I'm never change soundcard driver for a while and never got this problem before until some windows update.


----------



## Sanctuary

aray said:


> Probably a long shot considering people who don't have this problem wouldn't be viewing this thread, but does anyone have this soundcard + windows 10 without the deafening screech issue?
> 
> I also wonder if those of us who have the issue have similar PC parts...


 

 It isn't just windows 10.  This started with Windows 8.  I have two of these cards in two different systems, and it never happened once in the Windows 7 machine, and it happened a few times a month in the Windows 8 machine.  It's also not just browser based either, as I've had it do that **** multiple times just watching a video through MPC-HC whenver it would switch to the next file to play after the previous ended.

 Now, both systems are Windows 10, and both systems have the problem.  It started with Windows 8, and whatever was the problem there, carried over to Windows 10.  It has never happened once while listening to music on any OS or playing games.  Always and exclusively a video playback problem.
  
 It's extremely odd too that this issue does not get many complaints on the Unified driver forum either.


----------



## racofer

Ordered a Sound Blaster Z a few days ago. I've had enough of Asus sound cards. The worst part is that I can't even sell my Xonar because that would be downright irresponsible on my part to pass along something that can damage your hearing.
  
 I honestly don't care if it started with 7, 8 or 10 or whatever. This issue is being reported on Asus forums for years (http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&id=20090222084608127&board_id=21&model=Xonar%20Essence%20STX&page=1&count=49), from as far back as early 2009, way before Windows 8 release, and nothing has been done to address it. Why don't other cards have it if it's Windows fault? Why, apparently, it is restrict to AV100 chips? The issue points to something regarding Asus only, and I honestly cannot blame Microsoft at all for changing something on their end that merely exposed an issue on Asus cards. If Windows audio stack was bugged, then surely we would've heard of this issue affecting many more cards from every maker.
  
 Again, if anyone finds this thread in the future after having the worst audio experience of their lives, by having their headphones nearly blowing their ears off, I just say this: keep away from Asus sound cards.


----------



## bcschmerker4

*For @racofer and @kittinzaa:*  The problem is an incompatibility of the C-Media® CMI-8788 with the Vista audio stack; even ASUS® engineers have been hard-pressed to replicate the 6 kHz scream that I encountered on _rare_ occasions in Win 7, and the Microsoft hotfix didn't address the issue for everybody.  I transferred my XONAR® STX to a LinUX box prior to dist-upgrading the ASUS® CM1630-06 from 7.0.8001 to 10.0.10586 and have zero problems with ALSA snd-virtuoso in Ubuntu® 16.04.1-LTS (LinUX Kernel Family 4.4).  As @MajesticTwelve pointed out in an earlier Post:
  
 Quote:


majestictwelve said:


> I have a similar problem with my external USB DAC (Aune X1S) and Creative Audigy 4, so this problem is not limited to Asus' cards and it's rather Windows 10's fault. It's not as bad as with Xonar D1 I had before (there's just sudden silence or short weird noise, which could also be loud but I use an additional volume slider so can't really tell if it was extremely loud) and only happened once or twice (also occured during watching YouTube video).


 
 So far I haven't run into a problem with the Creative Laboratories® SB1550 under either Build 1511 10.0.10586 or Build 1607 10.0.14393, whereas - ironically - I had some issues with ALSA snd-emu10k1, which had been designed for the CA10K1, CA10K2, CA0100, and CA0102 (the since-failed SB0350 in the LinUX box had the CA0102) and hadn't been updated for the CA10200 and CA10300 to my knowledge, under 16.04.1-LTS.


----------



## Aray

i think we should post our computer specs...because i had windows 7 and 8 + the xonar STX and never had the problem. i got a new rig and upgraded to windows 10 shortly after and had this problem. it could very well be that my old rig wouldn't have done this even on windows 10.


----------



## TetraSky

aray said:


> i think we should post our computer specs...because i had windows 7 and 8 + the xonar STX and never had the problem. i got a new rig and upgraded to windows 10 shortly after and had this problem. it could very well be that my old rig wouldn't have done this even on windows 10.


 
 I actually encountered this issue at least once in Windows 7, so it's not new to Windows 10. I just feel that it didn't happen as often with Windows 7 though...
  
 PC specs :

 CPU : Intel Core i7 875k @3.4GHz Quad cores, up to 3.7GHz turbo boost single core.
 Motherboard : Asus P7P55D-e LX
 RAM : Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GBx2 DDR3-1600
 GPU : Gigabyte Radeon HD7970 GHz 3GB
 PSU : Corsair TX850w
 Soundcard : Asus Xonar STX
 Operating System : Windows 10


----------



## Aray

tetrasky said:


> I actually encountered this issue at least once in Windows 7, so it's not new to Windows 10. I just feel that it didn't happen as often with Windows 7 though...
> 
> PC specs :
> 
> ...


 
 If you encountered it in Windows 7 then I'm almost 100% sure it's some kind of hardware related issue, be it chipset, some bios setting, or whatever in combination with the later Windows OSes. In the years I've owned this soundcard it never happened to me on Windows 7 - 8.1 on my previous rig (q9450 @3.4ghz, GA-X48-DQ6). It does it on this new rig, though, and I initially thought it was because of Windows 10 since I upgraded to W10 about a month after I got my newer parts.


----------



## bcschmerker4

aray said:


> i think we should post our computer specs...because i had windows 7 and 8 + the xonar STX and never had the problem. i got a new rig and upgraded to windows 10 shortly after and had this problem. it could very well be that my old rig wouldn't have done this even on windows 10.


 
 Except for the Antec® TruePower® New™ 750 Blue™ PSU and more recently the Creative Laboratories® SB1550 audio card, I had an all-ASUS® rig.  The CM1630-06 Essentio Series™ mini-tower is based on a version of the M4A78LT-M:
  
 2.90 GHz Advanced Micro Devices® Athlon II® X2 220 (Socket AM3)
 AMD® RS760G/SB700 chipset with integrated ATi® Radeon® HD™ GPU
 8 GiB DDR3-1333 main memory
 Realtek® RTL8168D 10/100/1000Base-T4 network host adapter
  
 The XONAR® STX used a C-Media® CMi-8788 DSP through a PCIe-PCI bridge, while the Creative SB1550 uses the Creative Technology CA10300-IAT DSP through an ASMedia® PCIe-PCI bridge.


----------



## jeph0309

I created an account just for this thread. Its been happening for about two years now and it just happened a few moments ago. I'm really about to throw this thing to the garbage, it is really, I mean really dangerous!! My ears hurt right now, and I discourage anyone to continue using this product. Sometimes it happens everyday, and after a few months, it happens every 2 months or so.. 
  
 Running Windows 10,
 ASUS Maximus VI Hero,
 i5-4670k @4.0Ghz,
 8.0GB RAM,
 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti


----------



## Sanctuary

aray said:


> If you encountered it in Windows 7 then I'm almost 100% sure it's some kind of hardware related issue, be it chipset, some bios setting, or whatever in combination with the later Windows OSes. In the years I've owned this soundcard it never happened to me on Windows 7 - 8.1 on my previous rig (q9450 @3.4ghz, GA-X48-DQ6). It does it on this new rig, though, and I initially thought it was because of Windows 10 since I upgraded to W10 about a month after I got my newer parts.


 
 That doesn't really match my experience.  Never had it happen once on my Windows 7 PC across three and a half years, but it happened constantly on Windows 8.1.  Now that both of my PCs are Windows 10, it happens on both.  If it's in any way hardware related, then it just seems more like an issue of each iteration of the OS being less compatible with certain hardware then.  Windows 10 is just Windows 8.1 apology edition anyway.


----------



## driveandkill

I just made an account to also state that I am also having this problem, I had this on my old setup including a I7 2600, 7970, Asus P97 (not sure which it was, but asus), cougar 700w psu and crucial 16gb ballistix ram, win 7( not sure if it really occured on win7 but definetely on win10)
  
 New setup is
 Asus maximus viii ranger
 i5 6600k
 gtx 1080 (was a 970 for some time problem still occured)
 16gb HyperX fury ram
 cougar psu 700w
 Win10
  
 Luckily in my case the problem seems to occur only once every month or so maybe even longer intervals, rarely in shorter intervals. I primarily encounter this when watching youtube videos and today it happend when I shut down my pc and got an error message, triggering the windows error sound. The issue comes close to causing hearing damage I think but luckily I am able to rip off the headset fast enough to prevent that so far.
  
 Either way I am considering selling this soundcard despite its awesome qualities but can anyone recommend a soundcard that is able to compete with the STX? Maybe the creative ZxR? Also does this problem affect the STX II equally or does it occur less frequently on that card?


----------



## Aray

I can't test this because I rarely trigger the noise but for people who get it more often, do me a favor and try this:
  
 Go into Power Options (I just go Start -> type power options)
 Change what the power buttons do (on the left)
 At the top click "change settings that are currently unavailable
 On the bottom uncheck "turn on fast startup"
  
 My Skype has been giving me errors on shutdown and apparently others have been getting this. One post suggested that disabling fast boot could solve that problem. This got me thinking, maybe this ****s with other aspects of our drivers? I don't know, worth trying and literally nothing to lose.


----------



## MajesticTwelve

That's not it because I have a SSD so the fast startup is always disabled on my PC. As someone suggested I'll post my setup:
  
 Asus P8P67 Pro
 Intel Core i5-2500K
 Nvidia GTX 980Ti
 G.SKILL DDR3 2x8GB 2133MHz RAM
 OCZ Vertex 460 120GB SSD
 Chieftec 14CS 600W PSU
 Windows 10 x64


----------



## justtesting

Disabling fast boot both on W8.1 and W10 doesn't help with the issue, it was never enabled on my system that was running the DX.


----------



## mindbomb

So I had this happen again. I reported previously that it went away with windows 10 after I opened a crap load of new audio instances just to specifically look for this bug (literally hundreds). Now, it may be because of the anniversary update, which happened after I did my tests, but it could also be I just managed to be unlucky and not find it. 
  
 It does seem to only affect the xonar sound cards with asus branded processors and not cards like the dgx with a cmedia brand processor. And it only affects the analog output, not the spdif output on these cards.


----------



## evvil

I'm using windows 10 64 bit and had this issue several time even with windows 7. I'm using the official asus drivers for my asus stx II + sennheiser hd 650. a few minutes ago it happened again since a long time. my ears are still ringing. I was using firefox and was watching a youtube video and wind forward to the end. that triggered the distortion. my ears are still ringing. that's not healthy. the only thing the eventviewer showed me shortly after is this: I don't know if it's related but now I'm scared again while watching youtube videos. this sound is so loud, I'm hitting my headphones off my ears within a splitsecond just to stop the sound by playing a mp3.
  

mmc.exe
 
   10.0.14393.0
 
   57899afe
 
   KERNELBASE.dll
 
   10.0.14393.321
 
   57f4c4f0
 
   e0434352
 
   0000000000017788
 
   1c78
 
   01d228d726dde7d1
 
   C:\WINDOWS\system32\mmc.exe
 
   C:\WINDOWS\System32\KERNELBASE.dll
 
   0e51b0bf-4d0c-4564-bc5b-6a8f88659380


----------



## Aray

i have the exact same reaction, @evvil, i toss my headphones off and play a song to make it go away. i dunno, i might try to sell my card if this problem only affects the minority of us. maybe the new owner's rig wont trigger it.


----------



## geoxile

I did not see this thread, wish I had sooner. I get the same problem with a Xonar DX. Does anyone know how to recreate the problem consistently? And has anyone tried disabling Intel SpeedStep? It's been a good while since I had this problem and the only change was turning off Speedstep on my ASUS P8Z78-V Pro's BIOS. I'm not saying turning off SS worked but it's seriously been at least a month since I had it I think. I'd still like to solve it permanently somehow though.


----------



## evvil

Hello,
  
 I was not able to recreate it by now. I was using firefox, windows 10 64 bit, youtube and I fastforwarded a youtube video. I've tried it several times ofc without wearing my headphones but was not able to trigger it again.


----------



## BBr0ck

No screeching for me since june, last tricks I tried were disabling C6 state in bios, and core parking in Windows (https://bitsum.com/parkcontrol) + setting the soundcard to 192Khz.
 Those settings may affect DPC latency and help with this issue. I admit it's quite random, but it's worth a try.
  
 It was quite easy (5-10min) for me te reproduce this bug by skipping madly a *html5* youtube video with Firefox - which seems to be a frequent trigger for a lot a people. I also use a little plugin to force Youtube to play video in flash.
  
 Win10 x64 ver.1511
 Asus Essence STX II
Asus P8P67-M Pro rev 3.0
Intel Core i5 2500K
MSI GeForce GTX 660
G.Skill Extreme3 2 x 4 Go Ripjaws X 2133 MHz
Antec TruePower 650W


----------



## evvil

Still was not able to trigger it again but one thing for sure. I'm still kinda scared back in my head while watching any youtube Video.


----------



## evvil

Aaaaand it happened again. Can't find anything in the event viewer but who cares, I'm deaf anyway.
  
 Windows 10 64 Bit
 Firefox
 Youtube Video
 Asus Xonar STX II


----------



## Aray

yea im thinking of selling mine and just staying away from all ASUS products. this is not how you treat your flagship product(s).


----------



## bcschmerker4

For @evvil and @Aray:  As I reminded @racofer and @kittinzaa in Post 264, the problem is an incompatibility of the C-Media® CMI-8788 with the Vista audio stack; even ASUS® engineers have been hard-pressed to replicate the 6 kHz scream that I encountered on _rare_ occasions in Win 7, and the Microsoft hotfix didn't address the issue for everybody.  I transferred my XONAR® STX to a LinUX box prior to dist-upgrading the ASUS® CM1630-06 from 7.0.8001 to 10.0.10586 and have zero problems with ALSA snd-virtuoso in Ubuntu® 16.04.1-LTS (LinUX Kernel Family 4.4).
  
 I have found the XONAR family perfectly safe to use in any LinUX system with the driver snd-virtuoso in ALSA 1.0.27 and later.


----------



## Aray

bcschmerker4 said:


> For @evvil and @Aray:  As I reminded @racofer and @kittinzaa in Post 264, the problem is an incompatibility of the C-Media® CMI-8788 with the Vista audio stack; even ASUS® engineers have been hard-pressed to replicate the 6 kHz scream that I encountered on _rare_ occasions in Win 7, and the Microsoft hotfix didn't address the issue for everybody.  I transferred my XONAR® STX to a LinUX box prior to dist-upgrading the ASUS® CM1630-06 from 7.0.8001 to 10.0.10586 and have zero problems with ALSA snd-virtuoso in Ubuntu® 16.04.1-LTS (LinUX Kernel Family 4.4).
> 
> I have found the XONAR family perfectly safe to use in any LinUX system with the driver snd-virtuoso in ALSA 1.0.27 and later.


 
 i just find it strange that i literally never encountered this until i switched hardware. worked fine for me on windows 7 for many years.  i dunno, im gonna sell mine anyway


----------



## geoxile

Anyone know whether the static's volume is controlled by Windows volume or the xonar driver/control panel volume? I'm trying to figure out whether it can be lowered in software volume control


----------



## MajesticTwelve

When this noise occurs it probably sets Windows volume at 100% but if you lower the db level in the xonar control panel, the noise can be quieter. I'm not 100% sure though. I don't have this sound card anymore but someone should test it by significantly lowering the volume in the xonar panel.


----------



## mindbomb

The noise itself is because the card can't read the data properly, so digital volume control won't change anything. The gain settings on the headphone amp will still probably work.


----------



## geoxile

mindbomb said:


> The noise itself is because the card can't read the data properly, so digital volume control won't change anything. The gain settings on the headphone amp will still probably work.


 

 So you're saying neither the Xonar DX nor the Windows volume will affect it?


----------



## mindbomb

Yea, neither will - they are both the same volume control btw. You can use an external amp with the xonar dx, and the volume control on the amp will lower it.


----------



## geoxile

mindbomb said:


> Yea, neither will - they are both the same volume control btw. You can use an external amp with the xonar dx, and the volume control on the amp will lower it.


 
 In practice they work independently. Windows volume at 100, Xonar at 50 is nowhere near as loud as Windows at 100, Xonar at 100.
  
 How are they the same?


----------



## justtesting

Windows Volume seems to work up to what Xonar level permits (but probably even Xonar level goes bananas when the glitch happens). IIRC, it shouldn't be set too high (default is 76 in DX?) for the best THD.


----------



## mindbomb

geoxile said:


> In practice they work independently. Windows volume at 100, Xonar at 50 is nowhere near as loud as Windows at 100, Xonar at 100.
> 
> How are they the same?


 
 is this on windows xp? on newer windows, the xonar volume is the windows volume. When you change one, you change the other.


----------



## justtesting

geoxile is surely referring to the volume sliders on the asus control panel under "mixer" that are usually set to 76%, not the rotating volume button that also controls windows volume. In the mixer>playback, Left/Right volume will affect max windows volume and probably lessen sound quality if set to max.


----------



## geoxile

justtesting said:


> geoxile is surely referring to the volume sliders on the asus control panel under "mixer" that are usually set to 76%, not the rotating volume button that also controls windows volume. In the mixer>playback, Left/Right volume will affect max windows volume and probably lessen sound quality if set to max.




Yea, sorry, this is what I meant. I'm on win10


----------



## scrahn

I'm not sure my current issue is exactly the same as the screech-of-death being mentioned in here, but a few days ago when I was booting up, the Windows 10 intro jingle blasted at max volume with a loud ringing following. Luckily I didn't have my headphones on at the time. I yanked out the headphone jack from my STX and waited a bit. I put it back in and the sound was gone.

 The only change I did to my rig recently was to clock my i7-2600K from 4.2ghz to 4.4ghz (at 1.3v both before and after the OC, no turbo boost). That was about two weeks before this incident. A month before the incident I upgraded from a GeForce 770gtx to a 1070gtx. 

 Oh and I turned the 'left' and 'right' mixes in 'Mixer' in Xonar audio center to max a few weeks ago. I've since reset them to what I believe is 76%. 

 I think I had this screech back in Windows 7 once while watching a movie in VLC. Not sure if my clock was at 4.4ghz back then (very possible).

 I've turned off all windows event sounds and the startup jingle just to be safe. I'll probably update this post if it happens again.

 [EDIT]: Got high pitch scream when launching spotify after starting up PC. My screech appears to only happen (rarely) on the first sound that is played upon a new system startup, so not exactly what others have been reporting (screech during youtube vids and such). I fix it by unplugging the headset for a sec.


----------



## mindbomb

There is another set of drivers here http://danielkawakami.blogspot.com/2015/09/windows-10-drivers-for-asus-xonar.html . I'm giving it a shot to see if it helps.


----------



## justtesting

Unfortunately it's the same base driver (8.1.8.1823) as in the latest Asus or UniXonar offer :|


----------



## TetraSky

scrahn said:


> I'm not sure my current issue is exactly the same as the screech-of-death being mentioned in here, but a few days ago when I was booting up, the Windows 10 intro jingle blasted at max volume with a loud ringing following. Luckily I didn't have my headphones on at the time. I yanked out the headphone jack from my STX and waited a bit. I put it back in and the sound was gone.
> 
> The only change I did to my rig recently was to clock my i7-2600K from 4.2ghz to 4.4ghz (at 1.3v both before and after the OC, no turbo boost). That was about two weeks before this incident. A month before the incident I upgraded from a GeForce 770gtx to a 1070gtx.
> 
> ...


 
 Did the high pitch sound like this: (warning, I suggest removing your headphones)
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZqELNjFh0o
 That's how it sounded for me (obviously much louder considering I'm recording the sound coming from my headphones...)

 For now, I must say, it happened again not that long ago, which resulted in me getting surprised and literally throwing my headphones at the floor in a panic, breaking them... I was able to repair them with some Shoe Goo(don't judge me, that stuff works wonder), but now I've pretty much set my mind, I'm selling the card, just waiting for the holidays to end.


----------



## geoxile

scrahn said:


> I'm not sure my current issue is exactly the same as the screech-of-death being mentioned in here, but a few days ago when I was booting up, the Windows 10 intro jingle blasted at max volume with a loud ringing following. Luckily I didn't have my headphones on at the time. I yanked out the headphone jack from my STX and waited a bit. I put it back in and the sound was gone.
> 
> The only change I did to my rig recently was to clock my i7-2600K from 4.2ghz to 4.4ghz (at 1.3v both before and after the OC, no turbo boost). That was about two weeks before this incident. A month before the incident I upgraded from a GeForce 770gtx to a 1070gtx.
> 
> ...


 

 Did you have Windows volume set at max?


----------



## evvil

yes it sounds like that but insanely loud. it happened the first time with chrome now. I was reading some stuff on a website and a friend wrote me a message in steam. I heard the steam sound and a splitsecond later I had to push my headhphones off my head again. Before I had only issues with youtube + firefox. This happens way too often and I'm kinda nonstop nervous because of that and can't really enjoy it anymore. I'm gonna sell my card. It's no small issue I could deal with. It hurts!


----------



## bcschmerker4

*That's the same problem ASUSTeK engineers have been attempting to reproduce* for years.  The 6 kHz scream, which has all the symptoms of extreme overmodulation (I had to drop the Volume to 1 to get out of clipping when it did occur) is apparently limited to Microsoft® Windows® 6-up, whether with the ASUS® XONAR® Audio Center or the MaxedTech® UNi™ XONAR® Audio Software™.  No similar problem appears in ubuntu® 16.04.1-LTS with the Advanced LinUX Sound Architecture Project snd-virtuoso.
  
 Excepting the ROG® XONAR® Phoenix™ (C-Media® CMI-8888DHT), which uses an entirely different DSP chip, I have to consider the entire XONAR series safe only in a LinUX distro that can run ALSA 1.0.25 or later.  (Don't have an Apple® Macintosh® Pro™ to test the equivalent driver in Mac OS® X™ 10.5 or later.)


----------



## geoxile

Isn't it about time ASUS refreshed their Xonar line? It seems like they've been letting the line sit mostly still for years and in general it seems like sound cards haven't been moving forward much.


----------



## evvil

So the ROG Xonar Series has no problems like that? I need a new soundcard because I can't deal with it anymore. I'm no person to overplay things but it's that loud it hurts. Can anyone suggest a new soundcard for me?


----------



## bcschmerker4

Creative Laboratories® recently revived the Audigy platform in the form of the SB1550 (Creative Technology CA10300-IAT), which packs two microphone inputs to the rear plus a third integrated into the Intel® High Definition Audio™ compatible front panel header.  Also a stereo line input to the rear. The SB1510 (CA0132, Intel HDA-compatible) is still in production.
  
 And speaking of ASUS®, they've an entirely new family of audio cards in the STRIX® Series, which packs the C-Media® CMI6632AX DSP and one of three ESS multichannel DACs.  (The STRIX® RAID DLX has a SABRE9016, which packs eight channels rated for 124 dB S/N.)


----------



## geoxile

bcschmerker4 said:


> Creative Laboratories® recently revived the Audigy platform in the form of the SB1550 (Creative Technology CA10300-IAT), which packs two microphone inputs to the rear plus a third integrated into the Intel® High Definition Audio™ compatible front panel header.  Also a stereo line input to the rear. The SB1510 (CA0132, Intel HDA-compatible) is still in production.
> 
> And speaking of ASUS®, they've an entirely new family of audio cards in the STRIX® Series, which packs the C-Media® CMI6632AX DSP and one of three ESS multichannel DACs.  (The STRIX® RAID DLX has a SABRE9016, which packs eight channels rated for 124 dB S/N.)




Looks like the aforementioned new cards are getting poor reviews. Asus in particular seems to have poor driver support, as usual.


----------



## scrahn

tetrasky said:


> Did the high pitch sound like this: (warning, I suggest removing your headphones)
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZqELNjFh0o
> That's how it sounded for me (obviously much louder considering I'm recording the sound coming from my headphones...)
> 
> For now, I must say, it happened again not that long ago, which resulted in me getting surprised and literally throwing my headphones at the floor in a panic, breaking them... I was able to repair them with some Shoe Goo(don't judge me, that stuff works wonder), but now I've pretty much set my mind, I'm selling the card, just waiting for the holidays to end.


 


*Yes.* I could clearly hear that sound predominantly, and whatever soundfile it is spawning on.
 The first time I could hear that noise the the windows boot jingle was also playing. The screech kept on howling on until I removed my headset plug. I reacted pretty quickly, so it's possible the sound would have died out on its own once the jingle was done.

 I haven't experienced this issue since my last edit, and every time I launch any audio-producing application the first time on a fresh boot up I instinctively take the headphones off before sounds start playing.

 It sucks that you had to go through that! Stings the ear like a mofo.

 I noticed that a lot of people have previously mentioned using Firefox+Youtube when getting this issue. I have never had this happen in chrome using youtube. Might be worth switching over if you have this card and use FF.


geoxile said:


> Did you have Windows volume set at max?


 

 No I have it at around 20-25%. The first time I experienced this (windows jingle going full volume and 6hz screech) I had asus xonar audio center mix at 100%. I since returned it to its default (I went to 'mixer' and pressed 'default'). I'm not 100% sure if I had my Spotify 6hz screech before or after I reverted back to default.


----------



## Deathr0b

Please don't damage your hearing, sell this stupid soundcard and get the Soundblaster ZxR instead


----------



## justtesting

A new uni xonar package has been released with a new c-media .1825 driver that is exclusive for W10 (UNi Xonar W10 1825 v1.81a rev.2). You might try if for some miracle this has been solved.


----------



## bcschmerker4

*Taken under advisement,* although I cannot guarantee that C-Media® CMI-8788 Driver 8.3.1.1825 will kill the 6 kHz scream for good, especially with ASUSTeK Computer, Inc., not having a system that can reproduce the conditions under which it occurs under any of Microsoft® Windows® 6 through 10 - and the bug has been open since 2008, when 6.0.6000 first hit the market.  My own STX has given no trouble at all in ALSA snd-virtuoso 1.0.26; I'd sooner put a refurb Creative Laboratories® SB0350 into the CM1630 than attempt to reinstall the STX.


----------



## recepky

everybody getting this problem? My asus card is heavily modified, (with external masterclock and opamp+capacitor change etc.)
 so I thought I was the only one with this problem in the world...
  






 
 it is very scary that I usually watch netflix at night through my speakers and amplifiers. it is so loud that can burn speaker tweeters or power amplifier.
 It happened 3 or 4 times since it was started.
  
 I am using the Unixonar drivers on windows 7 64 bit
 asus mainboard
 i3 intel CPU
 600watt seasonic PSU
  
 this problem occurs since I turn my GAME PC into HTPC:
 I replaced my cpu(amd bulldozer) with i3
 I replaced my mainboard also (with ASUS, older was GIGABYTE)
 I changed opamps (with NE5532)
  
 It happens every 1 month or two months, on youtube on netflix on spotify on JRiver or etc.


----------



## evvil

Update:
  
 the default setting for playback volume is 76. I was using up to 90-95 and went back to default. Since my last post it has not happened again. I have no clue if that's coincidence or not. I'm using the sennheiser hd 650 and also went from high gain to extra high gain after lowering the playback volume back to the default settings.  
  
 tldr:
  
 old settings: high gain + 95 playback volume
 new settings: extra high gain + default(76) playback volume -> problem hasn't occurred since then
  
 I'll keep you guys up to date.


----------



## recepky

evvil said:


> Update:
> 
> the default setting for playback volume is 76. I was using up to 90-95 and went back to default. Since my last post it has not happened again. I have no clue if that's coincidence or not. I'm using the sennheiser hd 650 and also went from high gain to extra high gain after lowering the playback volume back to the default settings.
> 
> ...


 

 my volume is always 20%, it happens independent from volume control I think.


----------



## XonarSquealer

Just a reminder that there is a Microsoft Windows audio guy interested in this issue, and if anyone can get the sound to trigger while running a diagnostic program, he will investigate what is happening.

 More info here
 https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/4gis49/asus_xonar_stx_6khz_squealing/

 and here for setting up the diagnostic.
 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/matthew_van_eerde/2015/08/11/taking-audio-glitch-traces-on-windows-10-desktop-edition/

 I never had the issue *at all* for *years* until I installed Win 10 and I've had it ever since. There are plenty of people who've had it with Win7, Win8 & Win10 so it doesn't seem to be the defining Factor.

 I've tried reinstalling drivers, changing settings and all sorts of things but it still comes back.
 My latest setting is windows sounds set to "none" in the audio control panel and I haven't had the issue in a month or so... but that's not to say it won't come back.


----------



## justtesting

While using it and having the banshee scream of death under W10, I've always had my DX at default 76 CP volume and windows mixer (speakers) from 30 to 80% w/ windows sounds disabled. Btw, did anyone test the w10-only unixonar .1825 to see if it they help?


----------



## Booki

Just thought I would post back in this thread.
  
 My setup just did this again - this time it was on first boot while loading up my startup programs. While it was loading I opened up chrome and bam. Volume went to max and the 6hkz scream started.
  
 Does anybody know a comparable sound car (quality wise) to the stx? It hasn't happened over 6 months for me and I use my pc daily - but its horrible when it does because I use headphones so it just blasts my ear drums!
  
 I am over it now, I just want another card.
  
 Asus should recall the bloody card.


----------



## bcschmerker4

*That's a really tough one!*  I'm running a Creative Laboratories® SB1550 PCIe x1 audio card (Creative Technology CA10300-IAT DSP) in an expanded ASUS® CM1630-06 under Microsoft® Windows® 10 Version 1607 10.0.14393.693, but this model doesn't pack much upgradeability.  The two closest cards I'm aware of from Creative that might suit your requirements are the SB1270 PCIe x1 audio card (Creative Technology CA20K2-ICT DSP) and the SB1510 PCIe x1 audio card (Creative Technology CA0132-IAT DSP), both of which pack socketed op amps for I-V and line-level buffer.
  
 (I've encountered no problems with the XONAR® STX under ubuntu® 16.04.2-LTS, as the ALSA stack has no surprises unlike the Vista stack still used in Win 10.  MaxedTech® is using C-Media® CMI8788 driver 8.2.1.1025 in UNi™ XONAR® Audio Software™ 1.81.)


----------



## Booki

Hmmmm, I only use my sound card for headphone output - I liked it because it had the amp built in (if I ever chose to upgrade to a headphone that required it!) That said I never have, I am using the ATH-AD700 headphone and despite it lacking a little bit of bass, I have found no reason to upgrade.
  
 I also use a clipon mic, and the STX does a great job quality wise as when I have used onboard there is some noticeable noise in my mic.
  
 The SB1550 is definitely in budget.


----------



## wimderammelaere

I think I found the solution to this issue and it is quite simple.
  
 Following observations:
 1) this issue happens more when Link State Power Management is set on
 2) this issue happens more with Asus motherboard and Asus bioses come more with support for HPET
 3) this issue happens when CPU usage spikes
  
 This issue is caused by a timer issue.
 When HPET is enabled, you should set it exclusively by the following command:
 bcdedit /set useplatformclock true
 On windows 8+, you might also have to use (only tested on windows 7):
 bcdedit /set disabledynamictick yes
  
 When I reenabled HPET in the bios, i directly got the noise back, until windows redetected HPET on boot and it automatically stopped (I already used the command).
  
 The following steps might be still needed:
 1) make sure that the soundcard power supply is correctly connected
 Allthough the soundcard contains a detection for low power, it didn't detect the bad connection. I detected the bad connection, by connecting a cheap led fan (e.g. Antec TriCool 80mm fan) on the same cables and by rambling the cable. By replacing the molex cable with a cable with a better fitting molex connector, the reoccurrence lessened of the loud noise.
 2) make sure that the Link State Power Management setting in Power Options in Windows is set to off
 3) set the sampling speed in the Asus Audio Center to 44100 kHz
 and set the default format to 44100 kHz in Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound > Tab page Advanced
 I also disabled Exclusive mode, but i didn't test yet if this caused this loud noise.
  
 If you can find the utility wintimertester 1.1 on the internet (Be careful for viruses), you can check if the QueryPerformanceFrequency is _14.31818 _Mhz, which is the value when it is set exclusively to HPET.
 You can also use coreinfo from sysinternals to check if TSC is supported by your processor. When supported, this will cause HPET+TSC to be used, when useplatformclock is not set to true and HPET is enabled in BIOS.
  
 Further remarks:
 This has been tested on a windows 7 x32 set-up with all hotfixes (including qfe). You also can get all these updates with WHDownloader (at Majorgeeks).


----------



## bcschmerker4

Thanks for the diagnosis, @wimderammelaere.  My ASUS® CM1630-06's stock M4A78LT-M OEM mod packs CM1630 BIOS 0304, one of the first updates for the model; two more came before the CM1630 was discontinued.  Link State Power Management might be the complication that forced me to reinstall both the XONAR® Audio Center™ and the MaxedTech® UNi XONAR Audio Software™ in Safe Mode when the 1630 still ran Windows 7.0.8001; in normal operation, it would BSOD toward the end of the shutdown procedure after the driver failed to register.  (Nothing close to this issue encountered to date in ubuntu® 16.04.2-LTS, as the Advanced LinUX Sound Architecture Project's 1.0.26 audio stack is far hardware-friendlier than the Vista stack still in use for Win 10 Version 1607.)


----------



## justtesting

Sorry I can't test in the affected system anymore with the DX since replacing it, but on it I've tried temporarily to disable Link State Power Management without success and the banshee scream happened, also ASPM was disabled for that slot on BIOS. On that system HPET was enabled all the time with /set useplatformclock true (timer at 14.x MHz), because for some reason, W10 refused to come out of S3 without crashing under regular "bcdedit /deletevalue useplatformclock" (using HPET+TSC on a Phenom II). Unfortunately I've never tried to disable HPET because even some racing sims like Assetto Corsa require it.


----------



## Stenk

After reading this long thread, visiting the reddit i'd like to give you my experience with this bug. I own a Xonar Stx from the Xense pack (headset sold), i experienced this extremely annoying bug for 3 years. Thanks to my noisy neighbors i'm always wearing earplug at home with a AKG K550 so when the sound decided to go wild i was protected somehow and having the finger on the mute button of my keyboard was a must when travelling from point to point in a video. (youtube, dailymotion, you name it)
  
 I had 3 graphic cards during this period:
  
 - With GTX 650 ti, it was only from time to time.
 - With GTX 680, extremely often i wouldn't play a video without my finger on the mute button, i decided not to go on youtube anymore, and visiting the steam store was always with autoplay off
 - GTX680 burned out, back to GTX650ti only time to time bug
 - Bought a second hand GTX 770, same situation as GTX 680. Very often, sometimes 20minutes after i started the computer..
  
 I got rid of this crap Xonar, save your ears and stress. Now i got an external sound blaster, i'll never have this quality of sound again but hell it feels so good to navigate FREELY on youtube again. Thanks for reading and thank you all for your post that helped me take the decision.


----------



## wimderammelaere

Dear @Stenk,
  
 you shouldn't use a akg k550 with a xonar essence stx. It doesn't have the setting 'IEM or 16-32 ohm headsets'
 and it seems the xonar xense doesn't support this setting neither according to the manual.
 These are only supported on the xonar essence stx ii.
  
 Practically you will burn your headphone. It will heat up and break down, because
 the akg k550 has a impedance of 32 ohm. The akg q701/k701 would work with this set-up (62 ohm).
 This might also have damaged the soundcard, because the heat will build up in the headphone.


----------



## Stenk

Hello winderammelaere.
  
 Thank you for your advice. I do know it is a low impedance headphone, i also used an AKG K271 before this one but had no idea this could have this sort of consequences. Fortunately none of this happened. But maybe there could be a link between temperature and this annoying bug. I mentioned the graphic cards i had because the scenarios would be very different according to the different card i used. I never used the gain boost settings because the sound would be extremely loud with any gain.
  
 I couldn't figure anything more precise though, the bug could happened after watching 3 videos right after starting the PC or after an extensive use. It's very hard to reproduce. I remember the first time it happened very well. My neck started to shake like crazy and i had an instant reflex to throw the headphones away, i wish that to happen to no one.


----------



## Sofacykel

I described this issue in this post:
 http://www.head-fi.org/t/494565/xonar-essense-stx-random-loud-high-pitched-ringing-noise/120#post_11842340
  
 I've since sold my Essence 2 and bought an Essence (1) STX. Have not had the issue in 4 months. I think the STX2 driver is bogus or the card design is bust as I've had an Essence ST before as well with zero problems. Same Windows install with the same hardware between the 2 and the STX so I can't really think of anything else. 


wimderammelaere said:


> Dear @Stenk,
> 
> you shouldn't use a akg k550 with a xonar essence stx. It doesn't have the setting 'IEM or 16-32 ohm headsets'
> 
> ...


 
 What a load of horse.. Honestly, what kind of snake oil are you trying to sell here? You're confusing resistance, current and voltage I think...


----------



## bcschmerker4

stenk said:


> After reading this long thread, visiting the reddit i'd like to give you my experience with this bug. I own a Xonar Stx from the Xense pack (headset sold), i experienced this extremely annoying bug for 3 years. Thanks to my noisy neighbors i'm always wearing earplug at home with a AKG K550 so when the sound decided to go wild i was protected somehow and having the finger on the mute button of my keyboard was a must when travelling from point to point in a video. (youtube, dailymotion, you name it)
> 
> I had 3 graphic cards during this period:
> 
> ...


 

*Sorry about the increased incidence* - it appears that certain GPU drivers make the 6 kHz scream _more_ likely.  When I ran Win 7.0.8001, I had a bear of a time figuring out possible cause on my ASUS® CM1630-06 as upgraded, which still packs the EAH6850 DirectCU® video as of March 2017 in Win 10 Ver. 1607 10.0.144393.896.  But some of our fellow Head-Fi'ers packing systems with nVIDIA® Fermi GPU's had it more consistently.
  
 As of March 2017 I have a Creative Laboratories® SB1550 PCIe x1 audio card in for the XONAR® and have not had a repeat of the 6 kHz scream so far; I've wishlisted an ASUS® TURBO-RX460-4GD5 to replace the EAH6850 (which is stuck with an AMD legacy driver in Win 10).  Actually on the hardware-acquisition list, albeit low priority, is a Heil Sound™ Pro Set™ Media Pro, which at 200 Ω impedance will survive on the hot head-amps of today's cards.  (I'd previously ruled the AKG®/Harman® K550 out of further consideration for the primary headset for the XONAR®, as I'm specifically looking for medium-Z, viz., on or about 120 Ω, for that specific card.)


----------



## wimderammelaere

@Stenk I burned a AKG 550 on a xonar essence in some months. I think it is correlated to the high sensitivity (114 dB) and the low impedance. If you want to test the heating effect, you can plugin an earphone at that setting (<64 ohm). It will quickly heat up.
 Since I have changed the setting for hpet, the 6khz scream is gone. So at least for my pc, it is solved.


----------



## justtesting

@wimderammelaere Please let me understand what your fix was:
 a) disabling HPET on bios
 b) enabling HPET on bios, but forcing HPET timer all the time (/set useplatformclock true)
  
 If it's b), it didn't work on my SB750/Xonar DX system when W10 came out, because that was my daily setting.
  
 Thanks


----------



## TetraSky

After this screeching from hell happened once more a few days ago, I've taken it out of my system and now using onboard sound. It's awful, but at least my earring will thank me for it later until I get around to buy a replacement. I would highly suggest everyone else do the the same at this point or switch to Linux. A fix just isn't coming. It's been years and still nothing.
 Not sure if I want to sell the card or not though, on one hand I wouldn't wish this issue on my worst enemy. On the other hand I could use the money to buy a new soundcard.
  
 When it happened I was using the "latest"(UNi Xonar W10 1825 v1.81a rev.2) Windows 10 drivers from MaxedTech and had done the "fixes" told in this thread over time. It happened when a friend said something on Trillian (IM client), which played a short notification sound.. and bam, screeching from hell out of nowhere. Wasn't listening to music, youtube or anything else.


----------



## DaysLikeThis

It's happened twice for 4 month. Both time were different kind of headphones. I'm rely scared. Just Imagine - you're sitting and relaxing after hard work day, high quality music, headphones, soundcard and chillout music... and then this high pitched noise... My hands still shakes. Shall I move this soundcard to trash?
 Win7 x64, ASIO4ALLv2, MSI motherboard


----------



## justtesting

tetrasky said:


> After this screeching from hell happened once more a few days ago, I've taken it out of my system and now using onboard sound. It's awful, but at least my earring will thank me for it later until I get around to buy a replacement. I would highly suggest everyone else do the the same at this point or switch to Linux. A fix just isn't coming. It's been years and still nothing.
> Not sure if I want to sell the card or not though, on one hand I wouldn't wish this issue on my worst enemy. On the other hand I could use the money to buy a new soundcard.
> 
> When it happened I was using the "latest"(UNi Xonar W10 1825 v1.81a rev.2) Windows 10 drivers from MaxedTech and had done the "fixes" told in this thread over time. It happened when a friend said something on Trillian (IM client), which played a short notification sound.. and bam, screeching from hell out of nowhere. Wasn't listening to music, youtube or anything else.


 
 Thanks for confirming that the latest W10 driver doesn't solve it.


----------



## bcschmerker4

@TetraSky and @DaysLikeThis, ye ran into the same issue I did - the Vista audio stack is finicky as all get-go; ASUSTeK engineers could not consistently reproduce the problem, and C-Media engineers fixed the majority issues in CMI-8788 Driver 8.2.1.1025 (as used in MaxedTech® UNi XONAR Audio Software 1.83).  This still leaves the problem of the OS itself mishandling the signals, as is apparently still the case in Win 10.0.14393.693.
  
 On my ASUS® CM1630-06, I already sent in a Creative Laboratories® SB1550 (Creative Technology CA10300-IAT) for the XONAR® STX previously in the rig.  Creative wrote a completely new E-MU® CA10K1 driver based on experience gained with the X-Fi®, Recon3D®, and Z drivers for the Vista audio stack; I haven't encountered a 6 kHz scream problem to date on the SB1550.  The STX is, much to my delight, happier than a sheep in waist-deep grass in ubuntu® 16.04.2-LTS; the audio stack of Advanced LinUX Sound Architecture 1.0.26 is far hardware-friendlier than Vista, and the driver snd-virtuoso handles the CMI-8788 as a recording mixer, with independent gain controls and record enables for Mic/Line In, Aux In, and PCM.


----------



## evvil

A few weeks ago I changed from high gain to extra high gain in Asus Audio Center and the problem disappeared. So I thought I've kinda solved the problem until it came back today. Now I have to conjecture again and the latest change within my system(windows 10, 64 bit, creators update successfully installed) was a small security update for the adobe flashplayer which I've deinstalled already. The strange thing is, that I was not listening to music, watching a youtube video or something else. The uncomfortable feeling back in my mind was nearly gone and now it's back again.


----------



## geoxile

Is everyone using an Intel-based system? Any AMD users? I guess it could solely due to Windows being garbage but I'm wondering if the platform has any influence on it.


----------



## bcschmerker4

*I ran into the problem discussed this Thread* on an ASUS® CM1630-06 (Advanced Micro Devices® Athlon II® X2 220, RS760 northbridge/GPU, SB700 southbridge) packing the same firm's EAH6850DC/2DIS/1GD5 video card and XONARESSENCESTX/A audio card (plus an Antec® TruePower® New™ 750 Blue™ to feed everything), running Microsoft® Windows® 7.0.8001 (MultiProcessor Kernel 6.1.7601) on an extremely intermittent basis, but had switched audio cards to the Creative Laboratories® SB1550 prior to dist-upgrading to Windows 10 Release 1415 10.0.10576.  I was never able to trace what Service in Win 7 had contributing and/or mitigating factors for the 6 kHz scream; ASUSTeK had not been able to reproduce the problem, complicating all efforts at a fix for a problem that, as far as I am aware, extends back to Windows 6.0.6001, when the STX first hit the market.


----------



## justtesting

Also had the problem on a AM3 based platform with 790FX/SB750.


----------



## wimderammelaere

Hmm, the bug was back last week, but now it seems really seldom. I am now trying another solution.
 It seems firefox is corrupting the memory. The HPET just seems to mitigate the issue.
 It looks like the memory gets filled too much and i get a createTexture error from direct2d 1.1 backend.
 As I never seem to have an issue with google chrome, I think about 2 solutions:
 1) force firefox to use the same backend as google chrome by setting
 gfx.canvas.azure.backends and
 gfx.content.azure.backends
 to skia
 or skia,cairo
 2) it mostly happens on facebook with the asynchronous refresh of the screen, so another fix could be to set the following setting to false:
 layers.offmainthreadcomposition.async-animations
 A similar bug with asynchronous refresh has already been fixed in firefox, but this one seems to be related.
  
 I think most of my previous fixes just lowered the probability of the memory corruption by making the PC more responsive (HPET, link state power management).
 I also use EMET to prevent some of those memory corruptions.
 The tip of checking the molex connection is although still recommended.
  
 You change your settings in firefox by going to about:config.
 You can check your current gpu settings on about:support.
  
 I think the issue is caused by a combination of asynchronous refresh and memory corruption by using direct2d 1.1 and so it might be related to following update:
 https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/jj863687(v=vs.85).aspx
  
@justtesting Trillian might also have some memory bugs, so the only thing I can propose, is to use emet on all software with possible memory corruptions (like Trillian).
  
 List of buggy software according to me:
 -old versions of skype
 -icq
 -trillian
 -winamp with modern skins (classic and classicpro skins are ok), wasabi backend is too buggy
 -adobe flash player
 -firefox
 -java applet plugin
 So always use emet on these software. Winamp will randomly shutdown as a consequence with EMET protection, if you use modern skins.
  
 So you could see the screeching from hell as a feature 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





. It alerts you to memory corruption, which could be used by hackers._ @bcschmerker4_ That is why the feature doesn't work on Linux.


----------



## scrahn

Been three months since my last 6khz scream, but my luck ran out just now when starting a youtube video through reddit. I'm retiring this soundcard until there's a fix. My heart is still racing and ears still ringing.


----------



## Tsuki

Throwing my hat into this. It was happening on my Essence ST and now my Essence STX II. Happens to me extremely randomly. Usually once every 2-4 months. The most recent time, today, I was switching songs in FB2k using ASIO. I've had it happen on multiple Uni drivers, both Windows 7 and 10, and using both ASIO and non-ASIO applications. Never been able to reproduce it. Windows volume is always set at 18 and Foobar is always -37db. Xonar Audio Center is set at extra high high gain (I use a pair of HD6XX's, before it was HD600's). Link Sate Power Management has never been on.

Some possibly useful hardware info:
Xonar Essence STX II
Intel i7 3770
Gigabyte UD5H mobo
Happened on both an XFX 750w PSU and my newer Corsair RM1000i PSU.


I honestly think I am going to sell this card and get something external. Maybe a Schitt stack. I don't think I will be buying another ASUS audio product again. I was so sure the switch the the STX II would eliminate the issue, but I guess I was wrong.


----------



## bcschmerker4

Noted, @Tsuki.  I sent my STX to a LinUX box running ubuntu® 16.04.2-LTS and it's happier than a hog in slop in ALSA 1.0.26; no feedback-like howl at all and ALSA Mixer (/usr/bin/alsamixer) can access gains, record arms, and mutes for all inputs.  The STX' former place in the CM1630 now has a Creative Laboratories® SB1550 (not my first choice due to lack of shielding), which picked up little noise from the adjacent ASUS® EAH6850 DirectCU® video card; Creative supports the SB1550 in Win 10 through the just-released Version 1703 (Builds 10.0.15063.250 and up).


----------



## geoxile (May 7, 2017)

Haven't had it in a while but it makes me a little anxious whenever I switch over to the Xonar. The Sound Blaster Z doesn't have this problem right? I just want virtual surround sound without going deaf.

Edit: Is there no longer a search thread function?


----------



## justtesting

Never had the problem ever since replacing the DX with a bulk Z under W10.


----------



## geoxile (Jun 3, 2017)

Bump and a question for anyone who's tried the new ASUS STRIX cards. Is the Strix Soar any good? The reviews on amazon are quite poor but it seems to have more to do with the poor drivers in win10.

I've moved my headphones over to a modi/magni 2U stack completely but I'm still looking for an affordable source for my speakers. Though the SB Z's surround sound on optical out sounds nice too for headphones.


----------



## spanket (Jun 16, 2017)

Damn got an STX the other day and just had my first experience with the ring of death. Was wearing headphones and the volume suddenly went max and very distorted sound and high pitch squeal. I was using front headphone input but I tried the rear headphone and the noise was there too. Its constant and had to restart the PC to get rid of it  =/ When it happened I was only listening to music using foobar. Am feeling uneasy now, it was late at night at bed time


----------



## geoxile

spanket said:


> Damn got an STX the other day and just had my first experience with the ring of death. Was wearing headphones and the volume suddenly went max and very distorted sound and high pitch squeal. I was using front headphone input but I tried the rear headphone and the noise was there too. Its constant and had to restart the PC to get rid of it  =/ When it happened I was only listening to music using foobar. Am feeling uneasy now, it was late at night at bed time



I've found turning Windows volume down all the way will reset it.

Also, what PSU are you using? I haven't had it with my new PC and I'm wondering if it has something to do with the power supplies since xonar cards are powered by an additional power plug.


----------



## bcschmerker4

spanket said:


> Damn got an STX the other day and just had my first experience with the ring of death. Was wearing headphones and the volume suddenly went max and very distorted sound and high pitch squeal. I was using front headphone input but I tried the rear headphone and the noise was there too. Its constant and had to restart the PC to get rid of it  =/ When it happened I was only listening to music using foobar. Am feeling uneasy now, it was late at night at bed time


The problem is a hardware incompatibility of the C-Media® CMI8788 with the Vista audio stack; C-Media released a new driver 8.2.1.1025 (which MaxedTech® used for the UNi™ XONAR® Audio Software Release 1.92) for Microsoft® Windows® 10.0.14393.893 and up and it _still_ gets the random 6 kHz scream, a problem that ASUSTeK engineers still haven't managed to reproduce (and they've been trying since 2007).

I've used my own STX in ubuntu® 16.04.2-LTS for the past year with no issues; the Advanced LinUX Sound Architecture Project has a basic audio stack that's as hardware-friendly as the NT audio stack used in Windows NT through 5.2 XP.  I haven't a repeat of the 6 kXz scream issue with a Creative Laboratories® SB1550 that has taken the STX' place in my ASUS® CM1630-06 (which runs Windows 10.0.15063.413 as of 17 June 2017).


----------



## scrahn

Got myself a Sound blaster Z. I really can't tell the difference in sound quality (perhaps my ears are damaged from the 3 xonar screeches?), and I've not had any screeches yet. The Xonar is going into my linux box once I set it up in a few months for work.


----------



## justtesting

From the uni xonar support comments, could be worth checking:


> CarvedInside 02 AUG 2017 @ 02:56
> 
> I see. Thanks for the report. At the moment I don’t have any information on how to fix this.
> While it’s a long shot, you should check the Disable SpeakerCompensation tweak. Let me know if it has effect on the loud noise issue you are having.


----------



## Sanctuary

justtesting said:


> From the uni xonar support comments, could be worth checking:




Dunno if it will help with the issue (I haven't had it happen for about six months now, but I always prepare for it anyway), but it definitely did _something_ to the overall sound, and it's not a placebo effect either.  Everything just sounds "better" now.


----------



## evvil (Aug 23, 2017)

OK I'm back. I've solved the problem for me to 100%. I use the i5 4670K, MSI-Z87-G43 Motherboard, MSI GTX 980 Ti 6G, Asus Xonar STX II. The Problem only appears when HPET in Bios is enabled. I disable it, skip around in Youtube Videos, no way to trigger it. I enable it again in Bios and that happens:

PLS LOWER VOLUME BEFORE KLICKING
Volume was 18/100. The Video was filmed with my old smartphone but you can clearly hear the how loud it is.


----------



## bcschmerker4

evvil said:


> OK I'm back. I've solved the problem for me to 100%. I use the i5 4670K, MSI-Z87-G43 Motherboard, MSI GTX 980 Ti 6G, Asus Xonar STX II. The Problem only appears when HPET in Bios is enabled. I disable it, skip around in Youtube Videos, no way to trigger it. I enable it again in Bios and that happens:
> 
> PLS LOWER VOLUME BEFORE KLICKING
> Volume was 18/100. The Video was filmed with my old smartphone but you can clearly hear the how loud it is.



*Looks as though ye found the clue that escaped ASUSTeK support.*  The High Precision Event Timer must have some sort of mutual interference with the Vista audio stack.  HPET is not accessible in Setup for my CM1630-06.  (I don't run HPET in the Hot Rod gPC™ anyways, as it triggers known hardware bugs in the Advanced Micro Devices® SB700 southbridge, besides interfering with disquette controller timing in the ITC® 8718 super I/O.)


----------



## justtesting (Aug 25, 2017)

Interesting, in the past @wimderammelaere had the opposite conclusion on his system (post). He had to force Windows to use it all the time via /set useplatformclock true (so it's 14.3KHz all the time), but at the time when I was using the DX under the same setting it didn't eliminate the occurrence on that system. Never tried it disabled on bios, because some racing sims make use of it.
Using WinTimerTester, what is the frequency now reported (that you found scream free)?


----------



## mindbomb

The noise always plays at full volume regardless of your volume settings afaik. The gain setting (headphone impedance setting) can lower the volume, so setting that low is a good idea. I'm currently back on my xonar dx, testing to see if hifi mode with gx off helps prevent this issue. I think this issue has something to do with the latency becoming too high, and I think these settings will help lower it.


----------



## justtesting

Hi-fi mode + GX off (even disabled startup exes related to it) didn't solve it. It was my main setting during years, until the noise became recurrent in W10 without a change to it.


----------



## evvil

justtesting said:


> Hi-fi mode + GX off (even disabled startup exes related to it) didn't solve it. It was my main setting during years, until the noise became recurrent in W10 without a change to it.



same here. I use hifi mode most of the time. To me as I said before the ultimate solution was to disable hpet in bios. slow but steady the permanent inner tension decreases.


----------



## wimderammelaere (Aug 28, 2017)

@justtesting

You missed a newer post of me about this issue. The issue was finally solved for me by protecting buggy software with emet and/or configuring the backend of the software.
Winamp should only be used with classicpro skins and firefox should be used with the skia backend.

It seems that some race conditions in buggy software cause memory corruption in the memory space of the soundcard.
Tweaks with the HPET timer just reduced the reoccurence of the issue on my intel-based computer. This might be the opposite on AMD or other computers.
Probably it is caused by the addition of direct2d 1.1 to windows in combination with faulty usage of the api.
The soundcard was released before direct2d 1.1 was commonly used, so they might have missed the bug for their older xonar soundcards.

I haven't had an issue with the sound on Windows 7 (32-bit) since I switched firefox to the skia backend and kept my list of buggy software emet-protected.

List of buggy software according to me:
-old versions of skype
-icq
-trillian
-winamp with modern skins (classic and classicpro skins are ok), wasabi backend is too buggy
-adobe flash player
-firefox
-java applet plugin
So always use emet on these software. Winamp will randomly shutdown as a consequence with EMET protection, if you use modern skins.

Maybe there are other sofware that have issues on Windows 10. I only tested my fix on Windows 7.
EMET has been discontinued by Microsoft and Windows 10 does sometimes disable unsupported software, so the EMET fix might not work (now or in the future) for Windows 10.


----------



## Aray

just wanna say i havent had this problem on windows 10 ever since i switched back to ASUS' own drivers (was using unified drivers before)

i believe its been about a year now


----------



## mindbomb

I basically gave up on this. I will reiterate though, the spdif output does not have this issue. So you can still use xonars as a source for external dacs.


----------



## wimderammelaere (Nov 21, 2017)

@mindbomb Basically this issue is now mostly solved for me. With Firefox Quantum Edition (https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/11/14/introducing-firefox-quantum/) and the skia settings, the issue is finally gone. I only had this issue with old Firefox (Gecko engine) + Video DownloadHelper last week. The handling of hls streams by video downloadhelper is now handled by open-sourced software of this company (https://github.com/mi-g/vdhcoapp). This seems to solve the issue for this extension.
So basically the problem occurs only if you have buggy software installed.

I diagnose bad software as follows:
If a program crashes with emet protection, I consider it buggy and you should find an alternative (or disable the buggy functionality) or get another soundcard.

@Aray  I guess you are just lucky, as the drivers of Asus probably reserve another memory space, than the unified drivers. I guess having more ram, might also reduce the occurence.


----------



## ValentineMichaelSmith (Dec 19, 2017)

Have noticed something else to add to the loud white noise issue.  I thought at first the noise issue was confined to my headphones attached to the STX ii sound card.  However, the issue randomly surfaces when I use my Asus VK278 monitor coupled with the AMD HiDef audio device as the default sound device.  The monitor speakers randomly produce the same loud white noise as my headphones - usually when the system is shutting down.  Turning the monitor off cancels the noise.

I also use a Vizio E55-E1  4K TV as a PC monitor.  I have not heard the screeching through the Vizio's speakers when using the TV as the default playback device.  I have Windows 10 64 bit OS, MSI RX480 8GB video card, most recent AMD drivers, etc.

The Asus and Vizio evidence (one with occasional white noise, one without), would seem to indicate that this noise issue is a Windows 10 problem, as other posters have already stated.  It certainly isn't ONLY an STXii problem in my case, because the AMD Hi Def audio device is driving the TV and Monitor, which bypasses the STXii card and driver. I often wonder why Asus hasn't updated the STX ii driver since 09-09-2015 - do they know something we don't and aren't telling?  Also tried the Xonar drivers, same problem.

Lastly, some users have stated that they have to reboot their PC to get rid of the white noise problem.  Have discovered 2 alternative ways of dealing with this:

1) If the noise is active, in the Xonar Essence STX Audio Center, choose an alternative output not attached to any output device.  For instance, I don't have any external speakers attached to the sound card, so switching to the "2 speakers" analog out option eliminates the noise output.
2) In the STX Audio Center, I leave the output set to 2 speakers until ready to use the headphones.  That way the noise won't damage my cans or annoy me while not in use.


----------



## fufula

So I was asleep, with my sleepy music streaming through the speakers, when all of a sudden... Yeah, after many years of trying to find a solution, that was the last straw for me.

I couldn't stand the crappy onboard sound (the difference is clear as night and day), so I switched to the lesser known AIM SC808 and I couldn't be happier. I'd say that with the same OP AMPs I used with Essence ST, the sound quality is even better and there's no noise/hum on the headphone out. No problems and no screeching.

Do your ears a favor and get yourself a new soundcard.


----------



## bcschmerker4

*After reviewing the Web page for the SC808 from aim®,* I found that it packs the C-Media® CMI-8888, which is PCI-Express native.  ASUSTeK has already used the CMI-8888DHT in the ROG® XONAR® Phoebus™, so why not in a successor to the STX II?  The CMI-8888 should run cleanly enough for the Summit-Fi types.


----------



## ValentineMichaelSmith (Jan 30, 2018)

fufula said:


> So I was asleep, with my sleepy music streaming through the speakers, when all of a sudden... Yeah, after many years of trying to find a solution, that was the last straw for me.
> 
> I couldn't stand the crappy onboard sound (the difference is clear as night and day), so I switched to the lesser known AIM SC808 and I couldn't be happier. I'd say that with the same OP AMPs I used with Essence ST, the sound quality is even better and there's no noise/hum on the headphone out. No problems and no screeching.
> 
> Do your ears a favor and get yourself a new soundcard.


I
Decided to order  an AIM SC808 card based on fufula's  advice.  VERY few US sellers at this point, ordered it from Japan on Ebay.  Even the re-branded PowerColor Devil HDX 7.1 isn't that easy to find.  One of the things I really like about this card is that the daughterboard/ card combo was to be had for $115 - way less than half of the cost of the STX ii combo price.  I had intended to buy the Asus daughterboard separately, but good luck finding one.

Will report back later when card has been received and tested.


----------



## XonarSquealer

evvil said:


> same here. I use hifi mode most of the time. To me as I said before the ultimate solution was to disable hpet in bios. slow but steady the permanent inner tension decreases.



Don't let that inner tension decrease too far... I've had it happen twice since disabling HPET in the Bios (Asrock mobo)


----------



## Manve

Hi All, found this topic after years of searching. Thought I was the only one having this issue. I have read through all the pages, had the motivation since this is something that is bugging me for 6+ years so far. First of all, thanks to all who have posted and made this clearly an issue that is not rare and isolated just to few instances. 

To try to sum it up:
everyone who posted here has this issue (high volume noise bursting from speakers/headphones at random moment and more or less you have to restart computer for it to stop). There was a number of suggestions how to overcome/reduce the occurrence including changing some settings in the Asus UI for the card, type of drivers, version of drivers, version of Windows, type of OS, change in the BIOS and so on. None of this really work with the exception of going Linux. All of this is true for both STX and STX 2. I can add that a friend of mine is still using Windows XP and never had this issue. 

Seems like the change of the sound card is the only way to go. Asus didn't make anything after STX 2 which also has the issue and Creative made Creative Sound Blaster ZXR which uses the same NJM2114D as the Asus Essence STX. Should this mean that ZXR has the same issue?

Another option is going the external DAC way, but  how to tell will it have the same issue (e.g. PRO-JECT pre box S2) ? I am still failing to understand how some DACs can have the issue and some dont if the supposed cause is something that is present in all Windows since Vista. Is it somehow connected to type od DAC chip used? Or? How to avoid trowing your money away just to buy another product with the same issue?

p.s. I lived with those random 'explosions' from speakers from time to time while only adults were in the room. Now there is a baby in the room with the big speakers and I had to stop using the STX all together to avoid shocking my baby son.


----------



## ValentineMichaelSmith (Feb 23, 2018)

ValentineMichaelSmith said:


> I
> Decided to order  an AIM SC808 card based on fufula's  advice.  VERY few US sellers at this point, ordered it from Japan on Ebay.  Even the re-branded PowerColor Devil HDX 7.1 isn't that easy to find.  One of the things I really like about this card is that the daughterboard/ card combo was to be had for $115 - way less than half of the cost of the STX ii combo price.  I had intended to buy the Asus daughterboard separately, but good luck finding one.
> 
> Will report back later when card has been received and tested.


Well, got my AIM SC808 card in a couple of weeks ago. While the hardware might be close to the equal of the STXii, I think the card is notably inferior in the area of the software interface. You just don't have the configuration options and overall control with the Cmedia Xear Audio Center that you do with Asus's Audio Center.

For instance, there's no gain tuning for the headphone amp in the Xear app. The gain tuning is useful for low or high impedance headphones.

Another odd thing is that I couldn't get the AIM card to recognize the headphones plugged into the front panel (yes, the FP header cable was attached to the card). Sometimes I have 2 sets of cans plugged in to my PC, and use them interchangeably. With the Asus app, you just choose "Headphone" or "FP Headphone" to switch; with the SC808m the front panel cans just wouldn't work in any setting I tried.

To say something nice about the SC808, I did get it to sound excellent after some tweaking with the regular 6.35mm cable headphone setup; didn't test the 7.1 analog config.

Also, it sounded pretty decent with Microsoft's audio driver. You can get a lot of the audio effects you might want through your player apps. I use both J River Media Center (mostly for music) and Media Player Classic 64 bit (videos), coupled with the K-Lite codec mega pack.

In conclusion, I went back to the STXii. If CMedia improves their Audio Center app for the SC808, I'll give it another try.


----------



## beerfesten

I have had the essence st for years.
Used it without any problems on my windows 7 'ultimate' 64 bit for years on an asus p6t 'deluxe'
My 9 year old asus p6t broke a year ago, so i decided to buy a ryzen & an asus mb with pci slots,
for my essence st ( asus x-370 or so). 
I had to buy win 10, because microsoft decided not to support m2 ssd's in win 7.
Until a few weeks ago i never had the ringing problem. Since then i have had it 3 times.
Ear(& headphone?) destroying screaming, which continues until a reboot.
If i remember correctly i was using youtube & maybe foobar..or vlc..not sure.
I have these things on all the time 
It started just after the latest windows 10 update.
I didnt have the problem before this update, & my computer/usage habits are the same. 
Pls microsoft/asus, help us out.


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## Sanctuary (Mar 28, 2018)

It consistently happens with Youtube, or any embedded flash video really.  I had it happen a few times while watching a lot of my Game of Thrones Blu-ray rips in order, if I allowed the player to just automatically start the next file after the previous was competed, but since having stopped doing that, it almost _never happens _for me outside of mostly Youtube.  Once in a very random blue moon it will also happen on Netflix, but it only seems to ever happen if I'm quickly cycling through various shows and doing a lot of playing/pausing (which I rarely do).

Last night I just had the worst bout of it ever too, from Youtube again.  Not only did I get the high pitched screeching, it also blasted the regular audio on top of it at a high volume and super distorted.

It's been going on since Windows 8 too for me.  Never happened once under Windows 7.  Microsoft isn't going to change anything for this if they haven't by now, especially when it's not a widespread issue.


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## bcschmerker4

@beerfesten @Sanctuary That's the symptom I had as well, and as far as I'm aware ASUSTeK was never able to consistently reproduce the problem.  I swapped my STX for a Creative Laboratories® SB1550 Sound Blaster® Audigy® RX™ prior to the CM1630-06's Microsoft® Windows® dist-upgrade from 6.1.7601 to 10.0.10185.78 and the SB1550 hasn't run into the problem.  ALSA is far hardware-friendlier than Windows, and the STX is happier than a hog in slop in ALSA 1.0.26 under LinUX Kernels 4.0.4 and later - I can use it as a rudimentary recording console now.


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## Manve

bcschmerker4 said:


> and the SB1550 hasn't run into the problem


For how long? My STX would sometimes work fine for 3-4 months.


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## bcschmerker4

@Manve I last ran into the problem when the STX was still in the CM1630 under Win 6.1.7601, and I was running MaxedTech® UNi™ XONAR® Audio Software 1.64 at the time.  Never figured out how what would trigger it consistently so I could hunt for a solution.


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## wimderammelaere

@Sanctuary For me, it does happen on Windows 7, but only when using firefox in combination with youtube. I did see some improvement with the newest firefox. When you now close firefox, it actually resets the sounds. It seems in the recent builds of firefox, this situation has improved. I do protect my firefox exe with emet, which might also mitigate these issues. In Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, the EMET features are integrated.

I am still convinced this happens because there are some bugs in some windows software. These cause buffer overruns and corrupt the memory of the sound card.


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## Manve

Decided to ditch the sound card completely and got a NAD C388. Will see how it works, picking it up today.


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## Llewen (Oct 21, 2018)

The state of audio on PC's is abysmal.  The industry standard, Realtek, is mediocre at best.  The Asus Xonar Essence STX II is one of the few real audiophile cards that can still be purchased for a PC.  But as everyone who has dealt with them knows, the drivers are suspect at best.  They obviously haven't passed Microsoft quality assurance standards, or perhaps the manufacturer doesn't have the funds to pay Microsoft for that certifcation, but whatever the case may be, I have experienced this screeching issue.  I have also dealt with crashes coming out of sleep, and may be dealing with them right now.  But for what it's worth, I think I've got the screeching issue kicked to the curb, although, as others have noted, you can think you've got it solved and it will find it's way back and drive a spike through your eardrums when you least expect it.

For the record, here is a summary of my hardware:

```
Mainboard : ASUS CROSSHAIR V FORMULA-Z
Processor : AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor
Memory Module : 4x G.Skill F3-2400C10-8GTX 8GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-19200U DDR3-2400
Video Adapter : 2x MSI VCX RX 580 8G GDDR5 256B PCIE
Audio:  Asus Xonar Essence STX
Network Adapter : Intel(R) 82583V Gigabit Network Connection (Ethernet, 1Gbps)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Professional
```

I would recommend the *low dpc latency* UNI Xonar Drivers.  I've had the best luck with UNi Xonar 1816/1823 v1.80a r3*.  *Run the installer then choose the low dpc latency option.

I'm an OCD fiddler/tweaker/overclocker, and I've spent a lot of hours over the years, more than I care to count, doing just that.  This latest rig was my first attempt at a real gaming rig.  I actually had some money to spend and, believe it or not, I've had some good luck gaming with AMD hardware so I went with AMD.  This was almost three years ago now and I've spent most of those three years trying to get the best performance possible out of the hardware, trying to stabilize my over clocks and trying to find fixes for a number of really annoying problems, the Screech of Death from my beautiful audio card being one of them.

Specifically for me the Screech of Death would occur while Windows was booting up and starting up applications.  I don' think I've ever experienced it at other times.

At one point some 3DMark benchmarks were crashing.  Around the same time I had also discovered monitoring apps such as LatencyMon and DPC Latency Checker.  What I discovered was that the DPC latencies on my hardware were extremely high.  When I was looking up the 3DMark troubleshooting faq one of the entries dealt with behaviour that was very similar to what I was experiencing in the 3DMark benchmark that was refusing to run, and it was specific to AMD hardware.  What the entry said was that certain tdr latencies were so high with my processor that Windows couldn't handle them and it was causing faults.  Other research I did suggested that the Screech of Death issue with the Xonar Essence family of audio cards was caused by similar faults.

The research into that issue lead to this Microsoft page, incidentally one of the few times I've actually found useful information on a Microsoft site, but that's a topic for another time.  What I did was increase the values for some of the keys, I'll list which ones.  This is the point at which I repeat the usual warnings, modifying Windows registry can be dangerous, and can result in damage to your Windows software, or even potentially your hardware.  I accept no responsibility for any damage which may occur if you modify the settings as I suggest.  You should at a minimum, record the default values for the settings I am suggesting you change.  Backing up the entire key before you make any changes is also a good idea.  You should, before you do this, have some basic understanding of how to edit your registry, backup keys, etc.

The following is the code for a reg file containing the modifications I made.  Your mileage may vary, and will likely depend on your hardware.  Basically what I did was increase the values.  I increased those values based on my experience and my understanding of my hardware, but they were guesses.  Having said that, it appears to have worked for me.  The benchmark now runs without issue and, knock on wood, I am no longer experiencing the Screech of Death issue, although it will probably be a year or two before I am certain it is gone forever.


```
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers]
"TdrDelay"=dword:00000005
"TdrDdiDelay"=dword:0000000a
"TdrLimitTime"=dword:00000078
"TdrLimitCount"=dword:00000016
```

If you change the view in the regedit modify dialogue from Hexadecimal to Decimal, the changes are as follows:


```
TdrDelay changed from 2 to 10
TdrDdiDelay changed from 5 to 20
TdrLimitTime changed from 60 to 120
TdrLimitCount changed from 5 to 32
```


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## ValentineMichaelSmith

Llewen said:


> The state of audio on PC's is abysmal.  The industry standard, Realtek, is mediocre at best.  The Asus Xonar Essence STX II is one of the few real audiophile cards that can still be purchased for a PC.  But as everyone who has dealt with them knows, the drivers are suspect at best.  They obviously haven't passed Microsoft quality assurance standards, or perhaps the manufacturer doesn't have the funds to pay Microsoft for that certifcation, but whatever the case may be, I have experienced this screeching issue.  I have also dealt with crashes coming out of sleep, and may be dealing with them right now.  But for what it's worth, I think I've got the screeching issue kicked to the curb, although, as others have noted, you can think you've got it solved and it will find it's way back and drive a spike through your eardrums when you least expect it.
> 
> For the record, here is a summary of my hardware:
> 
> ...



Very nice post, a lot of good stuff.  As far as the Screech of Death, have to say that it's been at least 4 months since I've experienced it, and have been using Asus's current drivers, not UNI Xonar's (Uni was screeching too, so I went back to the stock driver).  Will try your registry hacks if the screech reoccurs.

Going to be upgrading to a Ryzen 2950X CPU rig in a couple of months, and transfer the Asus Xonar Essence STX II card to the new system.  Will report  if it's compatible with the Ryzen/Mobo.


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## Llewen

I neglected to say for the UNI drivers you should choose the low dpc latency drivers.  I've edited my post to say that now.


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## Llewen

I did not manage to fix the crash coming out of sleep issue, and it may not be related to audio drivers.


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## dcol

I don't have those registry entries. Not sure why the Graphic Driver section would affect the sound card. I still get the screech and this is the third system the card has been in. All have experienced the SOD.
I have had it pop up just during a You Tube video. Very unpredictable and definitely an issue. I usually just select a different playback device when I don't need the ASUS on. I told my wife to sue ASUS if I am found dead in my office from a heart attack.


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## Llewen

Typically any video playback, games, anything that involves video processing, will also include audio playback.  What appears to be happening is that the combination of the two is causing a dpc latency issue, which causes a fault, and it's that fault that is causing the "SOD".  If you don't have those settings in your registry, you can simply add them.  If  they don't fix the problem, just delete them and post back here.


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## dcol

Added the reg entries. Will post back if it happens again. By the way I am using the ASUS drivers.


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## Llewen

If you use the low dpc option on the UNI drivers, you may find that makes a difference as well.


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## Llewen

I edited the following in my original post in this thread.  I was still having issues with crashing coming out of sleep, and it seemed to be related to this issue, so I changed the values again, and it seems to have helped significantly.  Note that with the TdrLimitCount entry I have an 8 core processor and I changed that value to be a multiple of 8.  That may or may not be silly, but as I posted above, your mileage with these settings will likely vary depending on your hardware.  If you find settings that work better for you, please post them here and let us know.



Llewen said:


> ```
> TdrDelay changed from 2 to 10
> TdrDdiDelay changed from 5 to 20
> TdrLimitTime changed from 60 to 120
> ...


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## MxClood (Jan 4, 2019)

Hey everyone, i have the loud white noise issue since a long time. (Asus Xonar DX)
I read quite a lot of this thread, and since nothing seems to solve the problem with certainty on Windows, i want to share what "solved" it on my PC.

On my PC, i resolve the problem by setting windows volume to 100% (which is equal to Xonar volume to 100%, or Control Panel / Sound setting to 100%, all are the same for me).
I had the issue, frequently, like once or twice a week, mosly from Youtube (Firefox user), and also from UAC popup (so system's sounds i guess) but maybe from other source as well.
One day when having the issue, i just played with windows sound volume to see if it changed the noise (no) but when at 100% the noise went off.
With volume at 100%, several month passed and the bug never occured. I reinstalled Windows 10 recently for other purposes, still fine. (no UNI drivers for sure, just windows update if i'm correct.)

Now, if i came on this forum, it's because i searched for a more convenient solution as my old headphone died, and my new one have no volume control included, so i want to decrease windows volume from 100%.
That's what i did, and guess what, loud white noise the following day. So here i am.
But as it seems there is no true solution, i will go back to 100% volume as it totally resolve the issue for me. I will then adjust app setting, mute sound system, etc... everytime it will be necessary (with the risk of uncontrolled very loud app sound coming from time to time)

Good luck !


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## noob64

Hello everyone, I also have this "scratch of death" and random loose in rear channel volume with Xonar D1. 
I had this card on 3 PC configs, and OS like XP, Win7 and Win10. I never had problems when I was using AMD FX cpu and AMD RX gpu(win7 and 10), rarely loose of volume and that's it. "SOD" reappeared after I moved on Intel platform with Nvidia rtx gpu, and because new motherboards don't have anymore PCI slots I used PCI to PCI-E adapter for the sound card. I also tried different versions of drivers, however no change (UNi drivers with low dpc made it worse).
Did anyone tried Llewen registry fix ?


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## dcol

Tried every solution posted here. The only one that works is a different card. Went to Creative and no more issues.


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## Llewen

I no longer had the SOD problem on Windows 10, but I can say I switched to Debian GNU Linux and I have had no issues with sound since, no audio related crashes that I know of, and certainly no "Screech of Death".


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## bcschmerker4 (Mar 21, 2019)

The random 12 kHz scream is definitely rooted in hardware incompatibility of the C-Media® CMI-8700-series DSP's with the Vista audio stack, which complicated drivers for everybody supporting Windows 6-up.  I transferred my own STX to a LinUX rig, and the CMI-8788 is actually supported with _two_ drivers from the Advanced LinUX Sound Architecture Project: snd-oxygen for the AUZENTECH® X-series cards and their competition (except the X-Fi Prelude, which uses the E-MU®/Creative Technology CA20K1, and the X-Fi Forte and Home Theater HD, which use the E-MU®/Creative Technology CA20K2), snd-virtuoso for the ASUS® XONAR® Series.

I likewise went Creative for the ASUS® CM1630-06, and the Creative Laboratories® SB1550 Sound Blaster® Audigy® RX™, which packs the E-MU®/Creative Technology CA10300-IAT (direct descendant of the CA0108 last used in the SB0400 Audigy2 Value), is fully supported in Win 10.


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## noob64

Hello again,
Following _bcschmerker4 _advice just installed Sound Blaster® Audigy® RX to replace the xonar d1, no regrets !
Thank you.


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## nasim

Hello guys.

I recently bought a Fidelio X2HR, it is a low impedance headphone (30 ohms) and has a power limit of 500 mW. Anyone knows if this issue can damage my new headphones? I have the same card as the OP, it drives headphones all the way up to 600 ohms.

I think I am getting rid of this card because I don't need that kind of power anymore and I did the mental calculation that I prefer onboard over this bomb over my ears.


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## Odium (May 15, 2019)

I hope this post can be helpful in pinpointing the issue.
I've had win7 x64 and the STX for a good ~10 years without a single high-pitched noise issue.

Yesterday, I realized that, all this time, my speaker properties for the STX in windows were set to only 16-bit and 44100 Hz.
So I decided to play around with the settings, testing both different sampling rates in STX Audio Center and the Advanced tab of "Speaker properties".
I ended up settling on 24-bit 41000 Hz in both windows and STX center.

12 hours later, I have a heart- and panic attack due to an inexplicable high-pitched noise screeching all across my room out of nowhere.
I thought my computer's power supply was about to explode (it has terrible coil whine by default, so it didn't seem unreasonable to assume it had stepped up its game a bit).

This issue was immediately resolved by right-clicking the volume icon, going to Playback devices and right clicking my Asus Xonar device.
I'm not even sure if I needed to click "Configure speakers" to make the noise stop. It might be the case. My new-found PTSD is messing with my recollection of events.

Either way, I have reverted my settings to 16-bit 41000 Hz to see if my sudden onset of this particular bug was caused by the switch from 16 to 24-bit.
STX Center has also been reverted to 192KHz.

If anyone is willing to look in their settings and try reverting to 16-bit and see if that solves the issue, that would be my recommendation.

The fix would then be as follows:
Right click your volume icon and click Playback Devices.
Right click your Xonar device and press Properties.
Go to the advanced tab and change your sampling and bit depth to 16-bit/41000 Hz.

Optionally, and perhaps unrelated (?) I would also set my STX center's sampling rate to 192KHz.

That would be a replica of the settings I've had working for years and years on a machine that never sleeps.


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## septone

Odium said:


> I hope this post can be helpful in pinpointing the issue.
> I've had win7 x64 and the STX for a good ~10 years without a single high-pitched noise issue.
> 
> Yesterday, I realized that, all this time, my speaker properties for the STX in windows were set to only 16-bit and 44100 Hz.
> ...


This fix seems to be working ...Very happy to have found a fix for this !!


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## Sanctuary

I haven't had the problem for about a year now, and it likely has more to do with a Windows update than anything.  I'm also not sure why you would set your sample rate to 4100 Hz in Windows, yet change it to a much higher sampling rate through the card itself.  That doesn't actually _do_ anything beneficial, but will instead degrade it.  Music generally needs to be set to 4100 Hz, and DVD/Blu-ray needs to be set to 4800 Hz.  The only time you would raise it higher is when downloading the supposedly superior "HD tracks" that are 24/192 and mostly placebo, or outright cause additional _noise_.


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## red75prim

Sanctuary said:


> it likely has more to do with a Windows update than anything.



I don't think so. I've had no problems for a couple of weeks with 16bit/48kHz setting. Then I've got the screech yesterday. I've checked the settings and found that somehow they were 24bit/48kHz. Probably some program changed them or I did it accidentally. I use latest version of Windows 10 with all updates.


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## ev13wt

Screech of death after years again and my ears are are still ringing.

Tidal, switching tracks. 
I've had it switching from 41 to 48 in the Asus gui, I've haven't tried the above windows settings 16bit.

We should really sue ASUS for bodily harm.


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## techboy

Why don’t people just upgrade to a Schiit Stack? Even SQ of STX sucks honestly compared to decent budget stuff.


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## ev13wt

techboy said:


> Why don’t people just upgrade to a Schiit Stack? Even SQ of STX sucks honestly compared to decent budget stuff.




Ordered a HEL for work yesterday 

Can't agree the SQ sucks. Differences in DACs these days are <3% at the most anyhow. YMMV


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## OpTicaL

It's 2020 and the problem is still around. Read a lot of the solutions but none of them seem to permanently work. This high pitched sound happens on any platform, whether I'm listening to music or watching a video, doesn't matter if I'm using program or streaming audio/video. However it happens after I pause it a very long time and hit play again and that's how it's always occurs, at least for me.

This isn't really a fix but a quick way to get rid of the high pitch screeching noise when it occurs (instead of rebooting your PC), open your Xonar Essence ST/STX Audio Center, in the _analog out_ box, switch from 2 speakers (or whatever output you're currently on) to another output (doesn't matter which one) that's not in use and then switch it back.


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## eaglerock

Upgraded from the STX to Fiio k5 pro and been very happy


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## beerfesten

It seems..this bug has been resolved? (i hope i said it right im not english speaking)
I have not had this dead ring in a long time.
After 8-10? years still enjoying my ST.(with roland rh-300 and Yamaha mt5)
Praise the good spirits


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## Aray (Mar 23, 2021)

nah, just happened this morning as my pc booted to desktop.

my next pc build wont have an internal soundcard, can't trust any pc hardware manufacturer to actually support their damn products anymore. some external one connected via usb will be the path i go.


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