Would a failing PSU or other component affect sound quality?
Reason i ask is the onboard sound began playing up some months ago and umpteen attempts with installing and uninstalling realtek drivers had limited success. The sound issue remained albeit intermittent.
I bought the AE-5 and all was good then the issues returned. Occasional stutters no matter the media. Youtube, spotify, netflix. Nothing major but enough to annoy.
Then bought the katana sound bar. All good but not for long. Disabled onboard audio and good time again but low and behold it is still there then goes away and you think great but it returns seemingly with no reason.
Occasionally after a windows update the onboard audio is switched on and the stutter is resolved by turning it off but back it comes sometimes within days or even weeks without issues.
It does it with AE-5 installed and uninstalled. Headphones through AE-5 or katana it will appear when it decides so i can't even eliminate a single component for blame.
I have had enough and i'm at the stage where i want to replace the whole system but sleeping on it it seems a bit extreme.
Occasionally if i reboot enough times it will behave but waiting for it to return spoils any enjoyment of films or music.
Have updated the katana and AE-5 drivers to no avail.
I know when it is not working as when i circle the mouse and follow the pointer onscreen there is a blip with the pointer trail. Like a split second outage.
This is driving me mad. Do i need a new MB, CPU and PSU or is there a simple solution?
TIA
Could be wrong on this and its not easy to diagnose such faults but sounds like it could be a failing hard drive or failing RAM modules. That could explain the stutter issue. Power supplies can cause weird issues also especially if not providing a clean and stable energy to the Pc parts. If you can borrow the parts from another pc system or have more then 1 ssd and ram you can diagnose easily.
You would really need to replace 1 component
item at a time and retry the system, but I would go with main windows hard drive first, ram, p/s these are the usual suspects but some freaky stuff can occur like a bad gpu even.
I would also disconnect the system as much as you can, ie disconnect all hdds even a dodgy one connected to the system can cause issues, just one hdd at a time say the main windows hard drive only. And if you got 2 ram stick modules, try 1 only and at a time etc
Diagnostic tools you can try but just since your hdd or ram has passed does not mean there is no fault. I tested a SSD which passed all test after 4hrs but could see Windows was pausing time to time randomly, swopped the SSD and now works perfect. Same with ram modules in the past.
Baring a full on diagnostic sometimes your cpu and mobo is just bad even.