[Carborundum]

Hey there, I have been lurking here for a while now, but never had reason to post before this. However, I have now run into a bit of a problem that I hope someone here might be able to help me with.
A little background: about two weeks ago I bought myself an ASUS Xonar Essence ST, with which I am very happy. I was at the time running Windows XP Home Edition. Yesterday I upgraded to Windows 7 Professional x64, in part because of features like WASAPI and the ability to change the number of channels in ASUS Audio Center.
Now to the problem: since installing Windows 7, every now and then my headphones start emitting an extremely loud, extremely high-pitched noise (this has happened three times so far). The noise can be heard from across the room if I place the headphones on my desk. It is easily loud enough to damage my ears, and I think loud enough to damage the headphones themselves were I to let it go on for a bit. As it happens that wouldn't be too great a loss; they're a pair of five year old Sennheiser HD202 that are on the verge of breaking anyway. I will be getting a pair of HD650:s sometime next week though, and it would suck pretty badly if they were to be damaged.
Anyway: the first time this happened the noise stopped again after a second or two, the following two times it didn't; I instead had to dive under my desk to unplug the headphones (muting through Audio Center does not stop the noise). If I plug them right back in the noise is still there, I have to wait awhile until it stops by itself. I have been unable to find any pattern in when this occurs; the first time I was just idly looking through some folder on my computer, the second I was installing a program (RivaTuner), the third I had just started Foobar2000 and begun playing a song. This never happened during the week I was running Windows XP however, and now it has happened thrice in two days, so the problem is somehow related to Windows 7, that much I'm sure of.
Has anyone experienced anything similar, or have any idea of what might be happening and how I could fix it?

 

[ROBSCIX]

Are you using the latest drivers for everything?
Have you tried another PCI slot?

 

[zeromacro]

I had the same thing happen to me twice. I thought it was one of my hardware problems. I have the STX with W7 x64. For me it wasn't just random high pitch noise, I heard distorted voices as well (I didn't play anything or surf the web at all). It was loud enough that I threw my K701 to the desk. Luckily nothing was damaged.

 

[Carborundum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ROBSCIX /img/forum/go_quote.gif Are you using the latest drivers for everything? Have you tried another PCI slot?

Yes, I have the latest drivers for all of my hardware. I have not tried another PCI slot, but considering that it's the same slot my previous card (a Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme Music) sat in for four years without issue, and that the problem only began after I installed a new OS I doubt the PCI slot is at fault. If I am unable to otherwise solve the problem I might try that out of desperation though.
I have considered reinstalling my old sound card in order to narrow down the possible causes, but I'm reluctant to do so before I'm able to reliably reproduce the phenomenon. It's not really frequent enough to be a serious problem, but it sure is annoying when it does happen.

 

[sorinnsann]

The same thing happened to me with windows 7 x64, twice in 3 months. I had the latest drivers but until now i blamed it on hardware issues with my computer.
It may be a bug or something but the sound is metalic, very loud and happened when the computer/sound card was not stressed or anything, looks more like hardware issues.

 

[Head Injury]

Hasn't happened to me, been using 7 for nearly three months now. sorinnsann, are you using an ASUS card too? It's probably an issue with their drivers for the OS, not the OS itself. Also, everyone should see if bypassing the Windows audio system with WASAPI fixes the issue.

 

[Carborundum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Head Injury /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hasn't happened to me, been using 7 for nearly three months now. sorinnsann, are you using an ASUS card too? It's probably an issue with their drivers for the OS, not the OS itself. Also, everyone should see if bypassing the Windows audio system with WASAPI fixes the issue.

I can confirm that it does not; as I said, the third time it happened for me I had just started a song in foobar, for which I use the WASAPI plug-in. This does indeed seem to suggest that the problem is not with Windows 7 itself, but rather the Windows 7 drivers.

 

[DTrain]

As Rob said, try another PCI slot. I had a Prelude doing the same thing (it had worked fine under XP, but I got those inhuman screetches when I switched to Windows 7). I tried every software based solution know to mankind, and none of them worked.

I then got an STX, and the problem went away. If you don't have another PCI slot free, but you do have an open PCI-E slot, perhaps you could return the ST for an STX.