Horrable sound after upgrade to windows 10

Hi All,

I have recently upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 and I have had some problems with all of the sounds that I hear having a horrible static before, during, and after they play, and sometimes they are really distorted in addition to this.

I have the Sennheiser PC 363D with the latest 3D_G4ME1 drivers (version 1.4) for the Dolby sound. I have already tried reinstalling drivers and changing the default format in the speakers properties in Windows from "16 bit, 44100 Hz (CD Quality)" to "24 bit, 96000 Hz (Studio Quality)" seems to make it better (sometimes it's hard to tell) but it still sounds really bad.

I have also tried not using the USB sound card that is included with the headphones and I still get the bad sound, but if I try the headset on my Linux laptop it works great (no static or distorted sound) and my headset worked great before I upgraded to Windows 10, so it's obviously not my headset.

I have a friend that has the exact same headset and has also upgraded to Windows 10 (from Windows 8) so I will ask him if he has this problem (he's a bit of an Audiophile so I'm sure he would have mentioned it before if this was a problem for him).

Also I have this problem posted on another forum, but have not received any feedback after awhile so I'm just asking again on this forum in hopes this will answer my question sooner.

doubt the driver is fully win10 supported yet. what you can do, is try to check the configuration (make sure you configure it to 7.1) via windows audio device list?

You need at least Win 8.1 sound drivers for Win 10. Win 7 drivers, many times are not compatible.

You can try this. Go to the Device manager, uninstall the sound and also the drivers. Restart the PC and when Windows starts it will detect the sound and either download and install the correct sound driver or install the generic, basic function, High Definition Audio Driver. See if this changes anything with the PC sound (not the USB headset).

USB devices do not use the PC's sound card and get digital data and convert it to the analog audio.

OK it looks like the problem may have resolved itself, I was just reruning the cabling inside my computer to improve airflow (after I cleaned up the fans one of the cables was hitting a fan), over the years of upgrading and changing out hardware (and my case being so big that I end up having to do some creative wiring solutions for the cables to reach). While I was doing that I found a piece of dust in the connection between the front panel and the motherboard. My motherboard also mentioned that the CMOS had been reset. But when I booted into Windows my sound problem was fixed.


Thanks so much for your help though!

My solutions for metallic / distorted/ bad qualtiy / no sound on Windows10 + Realtek:

I took me over 10hours of searching to find the cause of the problem on my system.
I can only hope it will be a solution and save some time to someone:

1/ Start > search programs and files > type: VIEW INSTALLED UPDATES > Open

2/ View for updates of Microsoft Windows and look for the following: Cummulative update for Windows KB 3147458

3/ Right-click > Uninstall Click: Reboot later.

4/ Next: you do not want to install the update again. Use the MS-tool to avoid the specific update to be installed again.

Go to https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3073930

5/ Download the "Show or hide updates" troubleshooter package now. > wushowhide.diacab

6/ Open

7/ Click: Show or hide updates (Note: Now it will look for installed updates on your computer, which MS defines as: "Detecting problems" :) :) )

8/ Hide updates > If you choose 'Hide': Windows will not install a hidden update.

9/ Search for the KB 3147458 and mark it as 'Hide'

10/ Finish the Hide updates and reboot.


Additionally: you may need to uninstall your High definition driver. And do another reboot to automatically re-install the drivers. However for me after the first reboot, all sound was ok.

Hope this is of any help and can avoid a lot of frustration.!!!

fireberd's advice worked for me.

I have a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Go! Pro USB sound card, and after upgrading into Win10, I was getting faint clicks when listening to music and doing other stuff. In fact, when you adjust the system volume, the chime couldn't even play without a click.

My solution was to uninstall the sound card, unplug the card, reboot, and then plug it back in. Windows automatically installed a generic "USB audio device" driver. I don't get all the fancy enhancement "features" or whatever, but I never used any of that in the first place. Audio is crystal clear so far. No clicks when playing music, and the volume adjust chime plays perfectly.

Maybe the microphone jack will work too now... (it never worked in Win7 either)

voice sounds tinny and hallow in windows 10 - fresh resormat