only static sound in audio output

goodday,

I own a homebuilt PC with a Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1 Motherboard.
I've bought this one from a friend of mine and did a clean install of windows 10 64 bit before I bought it. after installing the pc everything works perfectly except the audio.

when I plug in speakers/headphones or earphones in the audio-output (motherboard + case output) all I hear is static and popping sounds (even when there's no sound playing) . when I disable the driver the static and popping sounds stop.

I've tried reinstalling the driver software (realtek HD audio) and disabling every other driver to see if any software is intervening with the driver. I've also tried different setting as setting it to AC '97 or HD audio and I've tried heaps of more things but didn't find any solution.

is there please someone who can help me? I'm out of ideas and can't find a solution on the internet.

thanks in advance,

Martijn


PS. At the moment I'm at work so I'm not able to provide all the specs of the PC But I'll try to provide as much information as I can if you need it.

Most PCs have an audio jack on the case as well as the one on the motherboard in the back.
Which one are you plugged into? Have you tried both?

That "sounds" like a bad motherboard (or, the audio chip on the motherboard). It would be rare to have two bad audio jacks.

Couple things to check/try:

• Go into the UEFI/BIOS and toggle the audio device off, save and exit into Windows, back into BIOS, turn it back on, save and exit into Windows and test
• Download a version of Linux (Ubuntu is good) onto a USB stick and run Ubuntu from there (Don't install it, just run it from the USB). See if the audio works in Linux. If it does then you know it is a Windows or driver problem. If it doesn't you know it is bad hardware.