Onboard sound quality issues

[Mathragh]

Hey people, I just built a new shiny overpowered mediacentre PC, for my dad(hes kinda an audio enthousiast).

Now its all up and running, working awesome, except the sound quality.
Now i know the onboard sound chips might not be the state of the art, but the way it sounds at the moment is just fail.

Theres 2 main things that bother me about the sound:

1: The general lack of real depth in any sound, and nothing really sounding as crispy as i'm used to. This could well be caused by the sound chip just not being awesome.

2: Weird humming, whining, buzzing, etc sounds. These can be gone for a moment, and then reappear, in random order, and at seemingly random times(though i got the feeling its connected to GPU load).

The sound made me think of random electric charges running trough the audio cable, and at first we didnt have the PSU power cable plugged in a grounded slot. We plugged the PSU power cable in a grounded slot after that, but to no avail.

As i dont really have experience troubleshooting audio problems, since i never had any before, I decided to ask this great community

Does anyone have an idea what could be causing one or both of these problems?

System Specs:

Zalman CNPS 7500-AlCu+LED
Sappire 1GB D5 X HD6850
AMD X6 II1055T
Be Quiet Pure Power 530W ATX23
SonyNec 24x DVD
SSD 60GB 275/285 OCZ Vertex2E
Asus M4A88TD-M/USB3
Samsung 2TB HD204UI
4GB 1333-999 ValueRAM
Antec Fusion Remote Black

 

[digibucc]

make sure it is properly ground.

if you know the speakers can produce better sound, first get rid of buzzing/humming, which is most often a power issue.

then try the software equalizer for whatever program you are using

 

[Mathragh]

Could you give me any advice on how to best ground what needs to be grounded?

 

[Red_Machine]

2: Weird humming, whining, buzzing, etc sounds. These can be gone for a moment, and then reappear, in random order, and at seemingly random times(though i got the feeling its connected to GPU load).

It's the hard drive interfering with the onboard chip. I had that issue on my previous two rigs. Get him a soundcard and it'll stop.

 

[majestic12]

A decent sound card or a USB DAC are probably the best ways to go for this. What kind of speakers are you using?

 

[micropage7]

It's the hard drive interfering with the onboard chip. I had that issue on my previous two rigs. Get him a soundcard and it'll stop.

i agree, try to attach soundcard
i ever experienced the same thing when i record by using onboard soundcard, it comes with noise after i use add on soundcard the noise disappear
and dont forget dont run the sound cables paralel with power cables coz the power cables would affect the sound quality

 

[Mathragh]

The speakers wont be a problem i think, he invested like 10k+ euro's in his marantz front, and end amplifiers, and his speakers.
Also, with another soundsource he doesnt have the problem.

As for a sound card, I'm gonna explore that option after newyears.

When it comes to grouding, can i just connect the PC case(its all conducting metal) to a ground in the wall socket? Or should I connect a specific motherboard connection to a ground?

Thanks for the help all

 

[Widjaja]

Yeah I get this issue with my old ASUS P4800SE.
Sound card does wonders and since this is a media center PC, a decent sound card is integral IMO.

 

[streetfighter 2]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and mention that you did not specify how you were connecting your computer to your speakers.

Audiophiles don't use onboard sound cards for starters. If you're going to use onboard use a digital output like SPDIF (via coax/toslink) or HDMI which aren't susceptible to the type of signal noise that you're describing.

Check out this thread for a discussion of some of the mid-range parts:
Which Sound Card to get?

If you're looking for studio studio quality audio I'd suggest something like this:
RME HDSP 9632

If you're frisky you can also look into an outboard DAC solution.

An important question you should ask your Dad (and yourself) is whether you're gearing your mediacentre PC towards music or movies or both.

 

[micropage7]

The speakers wont be a problem i think, he invested like 10k+ euro's in his marantz front, and end amplifiers, and his speakers.
Also, with another soundsource he doesnt have the problem.

As for a sound card, I'm gonna explore that option after newyears.

When it comes to grouding, can i just connect the PC case(its all conducting metal) to a ground in the wall socket? Or should I connect a specific motherboard connection to a ground?

Thanks for the help all

i guess if your dad uses nice speaker and chasing higher sound quality you should consider dedicated soundcard, not hanging on onboard soundcard.
Onboard soundcard is nice for daily use, and just for fun, but for serious audiophille dedicated soundcard is a must coz
1. They process sound better than on board
2. The chip is better than onboard soundcard, like could process on high bitrate
3. They support, like htx, dolby and support various configuration like 5.1 and so
4. They have dedicated board so the sound wont get dirty-ed by other signal
5. It wont eat your cpu resource

 

[Mathragh]

I found out the sound remains even when i unplug the cable.

This, together with the sound mainly audible when theres load on the gfx, leads me to believe its either the gfx, or the PSU causing some kind of electromagnetic disturbance, which in turn infuences the audio cable, leading to the amp!

I guess the only way to resolve this, is buying a new psu/gfx, or buying a shielded cable.

As for the quality issue, thinking about it now, its really a noob idea to just rely on the onboard sound when hes got such a great system to amplify things

So! I'm going with you guys' advice, and we're gonna buy some awesome dedicated sound card, so he can truly enjoy his audio^^.

Thanks alot people, and a happy new year in advance!^^