[FranzWesson]

I hate to bump such an ancient thread, but I figured I might as well add my experience with this particular issue.
 
I purchased my STX in early 2012 and I have experienced this same issue approx. 4 times. I am pretty sure I experienced this issue on both my headphones as well as my speakers, so I am leaning away from the headphone amp on the card and towards a hard-to-replicate driver issue.
 
I am running Windows 8.1 and had my playback settings at 44.1KHz/24-bit. I am currently using the 1.72a rev 2 version of the UNi Xonar drivers, but since I've had this issue a few times over the past several years, my version of Windows as well as the driver versions have changed. I still get the issue.
 
I ran into it most recently (two days ago) while browsing Youtube in Firefox. I was using the HTML5 player and seeking through a random video. As soon as I let go of the mouse on the seek bar, I immediately went from normal playback to massive distortion. After tearing off my headphones and stopping all audio playback, I had the familiar tone coming from my headphones until I rebooted my computer.
 
I haven't had any issues since. Given how infrequently this has occurred in the past for me (about once per year), any testing/troubleshooting is nearly impossible.
 
I don't think it's a hardware incompatibility because I regularly swap components out of my rig so my PC is a completely different machine than it was in 2012.
 
It's annoying, because I cringe everytime I pull my headphones on now.

 

[bcschmerker4]

Ye ran across a problem I traced to the Windows audio stack itself - OS audio events turn the 6 kHz scream on and off.  This is a serious bug in Windows 6.n that has yet to be fixed (it never occurred in Windows 2000 Professional or XP); don't know whether Microsoft Corporation has finally solved the problem in Win 10.

 

[nobody9147]

I have from time to time the problem. too. Happens the most watching youtube.

 

[FranzWesson]

  Ye ran across a problem I traced to the Windows audio stack itself - OS audio events turn the 6 kHz scream on and off.  This is a serious bug in Windows 6.n that has yet to be fixed (it never occurred in Windows 2000 Professional or XP); don't know whether Microsoft Corporation has finally solved the problem in Win 10.

Just got massive audio distortion when seeking through Youtube video. Running Windows 10 (x64, build 10240)
 
However, I did NOT get the high pitched whining afterward. I'm not sure if that's because I got out of the video so fast or they "fixed" that in 10.
 
Still, I am now debating getting rid of this card again.

 

[Button]

Wow I've just had this problem, started a youtube video and this insanely loud high pitch tone came out of the headphone and the audio was distorted. I just threw my headphones on the floor it was so loud.
 
Running windows 10 and the newest drivers
 
I'm going to have to get rid of this now as I don't want that to happen ever again.

 

[bcschmerker4]

Just as I suspected:  Microsoft Corporation still hasn't fixed the Vista audio stack for Windows® 10.0.10800.  I never ran across this scream in Ubuntu® 10.04-LTS or 12.04-LTS.

 

[Sofacykel]

So I just created an account here to add to the discussion.
 
I've once had a Xonar Essence STX for a full year without it happening. T'was a good sound card, alas there were some issues here and there with it stop responding and whatnot. I liked the audio quality I got, so when it came to build a new PC I went straight for the Xonar Essence STX 2 (or II).
 
I've had this card for just over a month and now, two times in two days, I've had this issue. Both were while searching through a Youtube video in the new player with HTML5 controls. Extremely loud, distorted sound that, upon ending, leaves a lasting tone just as described here. I contacted ASUS Support with the issue, this is what I got:
 
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Original mail:
"[Product Information]
Product Type : Audio Cards
Product Model : Essence STX II
Product S/N : (left out)
Place of Purchase : (left out)
Date of Purchase : 2015/07/08
Operating System : Windows 8.1 64bit

[Problem Description]
Very, very rarely the sound card will produce very, VERY loud distorted sound upon initiating playback of an audio file. After stopping playback a loud sound will continue playing around the 6KHz frequency. I am not sure I can reproduce this issue on demand.

I am very concerned about this happening again and that it will potentially harm my hearing - it is that loud in my headphones (Audio Technica ATH-M50).

The exact same issue has been reported several times for one of your earlier products, the Essence I. It seems this issue was not fixed with the release of the Essence II.

Source: (http://www.head-fi.org/t/494565/xonar-essense-stx-random-loud-high-pitched-ringing-noise)

According to the Essence STX II Audio Center, these are the software versions:
Audio Center: 0.3.1.11
Sound Driver Version: 8.1.11.5
GX: 1.0.12.106
ASIO: 2.0.0.14

Please help or I will have to part with this product. I am not risking losing my hearing for a slight increase in audio quality.

Kind regards"
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Reply from ASUS Support:
"Hi
 
There is nothing we can directly do as we do not offer any direct replacement or service for component products and we have not received any reports of this issue from the nordics except your that i am aware of. If you suspect that your card is faulty please return it to the retailer you bought it from for RMA processing."
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 
That reply is extremely disheartening. I am dealing with a small case of anxiety and I definitely feel physically and mentally unwell putting my headphones on daily now. I really enjoy the sound quality it provides while staying inside the case of my PC, and I don't think any other sound card would do it for me, so there either having this, or going full, dreadful onboard sound.
 
To think nobody else has reported it "in the nordics" makes me a bit suspicious.. But people tend to go to forums for support, so I suppose they wouldn't get a lot of inquiries. I urge everyone with this issue to contact support so they can be made aware and maybe push Microsoft to look into their faulty software audio solution.
 
Sadface.

 

[Button]

Wow that reply from ASUS is shocking, of course they know there is a problem. There has been multiple forum topics about this issue. I have taken the card out of my system, I am back using the interference ridden internal audio on the motherboard connected up to an O2 amp. Sounds no where near as good as the STX did but its better than going deaf or damaging my headphone... -_-

 

[bcschmerker4]

I've read a lot of complaints about Microsoft® Windows® 6.n and 10.0 recently, and from all indications Win 10 has inherited 6.n's defective audio stack; not much ASUSTeK Computer can do about a problem in Windows itself.  I'm anticipating rebuilding my Asus® CM1630-06 for Ubuntu® 16.04-LTS, and the XONAR® series is already supported by the Advanced LinUX Sound Architecture Project:  The driver snd-virtuoso is specific to the Asus® AV-100 audio chip and will control the output-select relays properly, unlike the driver snd-oxygen for the standard C-Media® CMI-8788 and CMI-8888.

 

[stealthspark3]

Contributing my experience below, it's disgusting that this is an issue. I'm ditching this card immediately.
 
I was seeking through a YouTube video when suddenly continuous max-volume screeching glitchnoise was pounding through my speakers, way past the system volume level I was at. I'm wondering if there's any precedent of these drivers fixing this specific issue. I think I'm going to ditch the card, I can't risk damaging my equipment or my hearing testing such an atrocious bug. These cards are dangerous.
 
System:
Xonar Essence STX
44.1k / Hi-Fi Mode enabled
Default ASUS Windows 8 64 bit drivers
Windows 10 Pro 64 bit
Firefox 40.0.2
HTML 5 YouTube player

 

[fufula]

I don't think this issue is limited to the Essence ST(X) I / II line of cards. Regardless, that reply you got from ASUS is not just disheartening, it's an outright lie. I personally reported this issue directly to ASUS and spoke with people who did so as well; there were many threads on their official support forums (I might've posted some links a few pages back, though they're probably dead now,) where many people reported the same exact issue of random high-pitched noises. At no point have they acknowledged the problem or done anything about it, obviously.
 
On a different note, I'm currently using W10 with the Uni Xonar drivers (low DPC) and over the course of a lttle over a month I've already had some weird random noise come out of my speakers twice. Not exactly high-pitched, one was more like pink noise or something, but extremely annoying nonetheless... Pretty sure I had some YouTube videos running in the background both times.

 

[mindbomb]

I think it's an issue with heat. Try using the pci/pci express slot furthest from your graphics card or using a graphics card with lower tdp.

 

[fufula]

If this was a heat issue, it'd happen when I'm playing games. It never did. Besides most people are aware they should keep their sound card away from their video card to avoid interference.

 

[mindbomb]

Well, I have two xonars, and one has never had this issue, while the other had it intermittently. I'm suspecting the reason was heat related since the one exhibiting the issue was just above the graphics card, and must have been heated by convection. The other one was below the graphics card and had a few slots of space in between too.

 

[Booki]

Hey all, Just registered to chuck in what happened to me... I havn't read all of the thread, but noticed there are some recent posts.
 
I too just had this happen to me, this frightening, horrible experience leaving me scared to use my headphones again (Audio Technica AD700's). Bad apart about these headphones, and id assume most audiophile style is there is no volume. So it just blasted me deaf!
 
After the initial "bang" it continued a high frequency squealing/buzzing noise. The only way i could suppress it was to switch to my speakers, although i did not risk turning them on.
 
After a reboot, the noise is gone but i am a little skeptical in using them now.
 
I am using;
 
Windows 10 Pro 64bit
Asus Xonar STX
Driver: UNi Xonar 1822 v1.75a r2.exe
 
Also note: This happened while I watched a youtube video, no games or anything cpu/gpu hungry were running at the time.