Asus Prime X570-Pro Ryzen 3 AM4 AMD 3700x The stuttering and popping problems some people are having, I don't think the problems are necessarily the fault of the sound card or drivers. Or maybe they coded the drivers to work oddly and have conflicts, I don't know. I do know that in 20 years of owning different sound card this problem comes up constantly in every brands forum no matter who makes the cards. Sometimes it's driver problems, sometimes it's hardware, especially with new cards and maybe inexperienced developers, but mostly it's some conflict or other software or setting that is causing the problem.
I do know the Asus Armoury crate is crap software though. At first I had some minor sound issues, but I think I adjusted something and it was fine (at least for the moment). But after that I was using the Asus Armoury crate trying to dial in my LED lighting functions in my different PC parts. Nothing worked right at all (sound was still fine though). I swear Asus, I mean I couldn't even start the system when I first put it together and the memory wouldn't work in certain slots, had to use one memory stick, then adjust tons of settings and change slots to get two to work. Anyway that is another story. I didn't trust their software and it didn't work well. So I thought it best just to uninstall it all. It didn't seem to even uninstall well at all. And left pieces. I tried to manually remove as much as I could.
I also noticed windows took a long time to load, and especially to shut down before when it was installed. After uninstall windows now shuts down and started up much faster. My system felt way more snappier. I definitely don't want that software back on. It was also using excessive resources and CPU time.
BUT my audio totally went to crap after uninstall. It was stuttering and popping. I discovered that there was still some Armoury crate processes running. In task manager I went to the "details" tab, found anything that said Armoury and some other asus process and disabled it and also disabled C-state in the bios. It helped but I still had some sound issues. I then went to find more Armoury files in the folders and deleted what I could. I also found out that in the bios they have a setting to automatically download armory crate. I disabled that. The problem is when restart some files still come back so I need to hunt them down next start up and delete them manually. And just for good measure I disabled the EVGA_NahimicAPI at startup in task manager. I noticed it loads both 32 bit and 64 bit, I figured I'd just let it load which one it needs by itself instead of both at start up, maybe that was some issue maybe it doesn't matter. Who knows.
But no more pops and clicks and stuttering. Also it wasn't just the soundcard, it was the mouse as others have stated. These problems are tied to the USB. I was having mouse stutter too (happened before and after Armoury uninstall). So this isn't just a soundcard problem that should be blamed all on the soundcard Devs. I noticed it did get better when I put my mouse off to the side like one guy said. When the mouse is moving I think it wants to pre load stuff it's hovering over maybe and causing USB overload and lag? I don't know. It's weird. This Armoury software does access the USB interfaces in order to run the LED lighting that is on the USB. So I think all these boards that have LED's on them and LED software might be causing some serious problems with the USB bus and screwing up the soundcard in the process. If you're running any of this LED software and having problems, maybe consider getting rid of it all.
All other audio inputs, mics etc, are off or muted. I installed ASIO in foobar2000, listened to my WAV file rips, and oh my word it's glorious sounding. Absolutely beautiful music. I just leave it on 16 bit 44,000. In all my decades of being an Audiophile I've found that anything above that just adds a slight artificial softness to it, some people think it's better because it ever slightly glosses over the sound. You can't actually get 24 real bits anyways (I believe 21 actual bit sound is the max). They use fancy dithering or some such to achieve it. Maybe if you're only listening to 24bit rips then go ahead and put it higher, but 99.99 percent of my audio is 16 bit rips. It does no good to rip higher than that unless it was recorded in 24 bit, mastered in 24 bit, and then encoded into 24 bit). I've always noticed an ever so slight crisper and cleaner sound by leaving it on 16bit, the closer you can get to the original source the better.
On a side note my Video games had no Audio or stuttering or anything at anytime during all this. How is that for odd? So the soundcard was totally fine, it's just something else goofy along the way.
So my process was this:
Uninstall Asus Armoury Crate
Disable Armoury Crate in bios from automatically downloading
Disable C state in Bios
Manually delete any Amoury Crate files left in windows folders
Task manager: Go to detail tab, disable anything Armoury Crate
After start up I still need to track down the last of the Armoury crate files, disable again in task manager because they will come back after restart, click on them and fine the folder they are in, go to that folder and delete the file
For good measure I disabled the two EVGA_NahimicAPI at startup in task manager. (no clue if that actually matters).
Personally prefer 16 bit 44,000 setting (and it might be easier to run anyway).
Foobar2000 and Asio
And now it sounds incredible and my whole system is super snappy and windows starts up and shuts down much faster.
Hopefully there is someone out there this will help. And give you hope. There is probably a hundred reasons something could cause problems and it doesn't mean it's the soundcard or the Devs fault. Many times over the decades I've had to track down sound problems or read about others, usually it's just the luck of the draw on what hardware or software you have, or what some obscure setting is that you need to hunt down. Or maybe they also need to polish something too. But as long as it can be fixed keep plugging away until you find it. This card sounds amazing. Ounce it's dialed in I feel like I'm getting the sound of a $1000 dac (of course I have an expensive platinum power supply and expensive computer wrapped around it though). I'm extremely pleased with the sound from this card. And I've owned all the best of all the other brands over the years. I didn't go with the Sound Blaster AE9 because I hated that the only input was through the desk pod module thing. The input didn't get good reviews, and I wanted an input that was directly on the card like the NuAudio has. I realize the mic input isn't super great on the nuAudio card but the auxiliary input is actually much better and no reason a mic can't also be plugged into that for recording. After hearing what this card is capable of I have no desire to even try the AE9 now.
post edited by nufunk - 2019/12/10 14:06:39