Headphone static and distorted microphone

Hi!

I'm having the following issue recently and ran out of ideas on how to fix it. Any help would be appreciated.

First of all I'm using Windows 10 with all the updates, I have a HyperX Cloud headset and I'm using the integrated Realtek soundcard of a Gigabyte GA-B85M-D3H motherboard.

When I'm playing games on my PC for 5-20 minutes my headset randomly starts playing static noises and my microphone starts shifting the pitch of my speech up. It gets worse and worse, in the end it's pretty much incomprehensible what I was saying. The only way to fix it is to tab out of the game and wait for a while but if I continue playing again it can return.

Usually the problem appears while I'm playing Payday 2, War Thunder or World of Tanks, but it happened once while playing through Assault on Dark Athena too so I can't fault 1 game for the issue. Sometimes I can play for days without encountering the issue, then there are periods when it appears almost daily.

So far I've tried the following to find the cause of the problem:

1. I've tried multiple soundard drivers.
2. I've tried using my headset without the volume control box.
3. I've tried twisting and moving the cable of the headset to see if the cable was broken.
4. I've tried plugging the headset into the front audio panel.
5. I've tried putting the fan speed on my CPU and GPU to 100% to see if that gets randomly picked up by the headset.
6. Once I noticed the static sound in the headset, I checked in Audacity and I had a high pitched sound again. I've quickly plugged in the mic into my phone and started recording, then back into my PC for a third recording.

The result was the following:

- The first recording on the PC was really high pitched and barely comprehensible
- The recording on my phone was normal without any pitch shifting
- The second recording on the PC after the mobile recording had the high pitch again, but it was slightly lower.

The only other thing I suspected was that the soundcard was somehow overheating however I have my doubts with that. I've cleaned out the PC case in mid December and checked it again once I've encountered the problem for the first time in January. There was barely any dust in there but gave it some compressed air just in case. Couldn't see any damage on the soundcard chip on the mobo. No other component is overheating. My CPU is around 60-65 °C and my GPU is around 80-85 °C under load when I'm playing. The room temperature is between 16-22 °C. I also have a side fan pushing fresh air onto the GPU and the soundcard chip and I have a good airflow in the case with 1 intake fan on the front, 1 on the side and 1 exhaust fan in the back + the PSU fan is sucking out air too.

I had this setup for over 4 years now and I clean the case out regularly and never had issues with overheating or with the soundcard before.

A GPU around the 85 C is too high for comfort. I would want that lower by 10 degrees. That is a periferal issue that probably does not relate to sound.

Only a few components have temperature sensors, so there is no way of knowing whether the rest is overheating or not.

There maybe a dry solder joint somewhere on the MOBO in the sound system area which gets worse as the temperature increases. Temperature cycling over the years would make it worse.

That would be impossible to track down with the size of MOBO components these days.

You have already done all the sensible checks in your 1. to 6. list.

I would add to that, run everything at design speed, overclocking CPU, RAM, and GPU. anyone of these might be a cause. Worth a check at least.

Helmut said:

A GPU around the 85 C is too high for comfort. I would want that lower by 10 degrees. That is a periferal issue that probably does not relate to sound.
I would add to that, run everything at design speed, overclocking CPU, RAM, and GPU. anyone of these might be a cause. Worth a check at least.

It's an R9 290 with factory clock speeds and in a case with 2 intake and 1 exhaust fan. I've changed the thermal paste on it last summer. The only remaining thing I could do is to set up a more aggressive fan profile in afterburner but I'm not sure how much that would help.