[Booki]

Just thought I would post back in this thread.
 
My setup just did this again - this time it was on first boot while loading up my startup programs. While it was loading I opened up chrome and bam. Volume went to max and the 6hkz scream started.
 
Does anybody know a comparable sound car (quality wise) to the stx? It hasn't happened over 6 months for me and I use my pc daily - but its horrible when it does because I use headphones so it just blasts my ear drums!
 
I am over it now, I just want another card.
 
Asus should recall the bloody card.

 

[bcschmerker4]

That's a really tough one!  I'm running a Creative Laboratories® SB1550 PCIe x1 audio card (Creative Technology CA10300-IAT DSP) in an expanded ASUS® CM1630-06 under Microsoft® Windows® 10 Version 1607 10.0.14393.693, but this model doesn't pack much upgradeability.  The two closest cards I'm aware of from Creative that might suit your requirements are the SB1270 PCIe x1 audio card (Creative Technology CA20K2-ICT DSP) and the SB1510 PCIe x1 audio card (Creative Technology CA0132-IAT DSP), both of which pack socketed op amps for I-V and line-level buffer.
 
(I've encountered no problems with the XONAR® STX under ubuntu® 16.04.2-LTS, as the ALSA stack has no surprises unlike the Vista stack still used in Win 10.  MaxedTech® is using C-Media® CMI8788 driver 8.2.1.1025 in UNi™ XONAR® Audio Software™ 1.81.)

 

[Booki]

Hmmmm, I only use my sound card for headphone output - I liked it because it had the amp built in (if I ever chose to upgrade to a headphone that required it!) That said I never have, I am using the ATH-AD700 headphone and despite it lacking a little bit of bass, I have found no reason to upgrade.
 
I also use a clipon mic, and the STX does a great job quality wise as when I have used onboard there is some noticeable noise in my mic.
 
The SB1550 is definitely in budget.

 

[wimderammelaere]

I think I found the solution to this issue and it is quite simple.
 
Following observations:
1) this issue happens more when Link State Power Management is set on
2) this issue happens more with Asus motherboard and Asus bioses come more with support for HPET
3) this issue happens when CPU usage spikes
 
This issue is caused by a timer issue.
When HPET is enabled, you should set it exclusively by the following command:
bcdedit /set useplatformclock true
On windows 8+, you might also have to use (only tested on windows 7):
bcdedit /set disabledynamictick yes
 
When I reenabled HPET in the bios, i directly got the noise back, until windows redetected HPET on boot and it automatically stopped (I already used the command).
 
The following steps might be still needed:
1) make sure that the soundcard power supply is correctly connected
Allthough the soundcard contains a detection for low power, it didn't detect the bad connection. I detected the bad connection, by connecting a cheap led fan (e.g. Antec TriCool 80mm fan) on the same cables and by rambling the cable. By replacing the molex cable with a cable with a better fitting molex connector, the reoccurrence lessened of the loud noise.
2) make sure that the Link State Power Management setting in Power Options in Windows is set to off
3) set the sampling speed in the Asus Audio Center to 44100 kHz
and set the default format to 44100 kHz in Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound > Tab page Advanced
I also disabled Exclusive mode, but i didn't test yet if this caused this loud noise.
 
If you can find the utility wintimertester 1.1 on the internet (Be careful for viruses), you can check if the QueryPerformanceFrequency is 14.31818 Mhz, which is the value when it is set exclusively to HPET.
You can also use coreinfo from sysinternals to check if TSC is supported by your processor. When supported, this will cause HPET+TSC to be used, when useplatformclock is not set to true and HPET is enabled in BIOS.
 
Further remarks:
This has been tested on a windows 7 x32 set-up with all hotfixes (including qfe). You also can get all these updates with WHDownloader (at Majorgeeks).

 

[bcschmerker4]

Thanks for the diagnosis, @wimderammelaere.  My ASUS® CM1630-06's stock M4A78LT-M OEM mod packs CM1630 BIOS 0304, one of the first updates for the model; two more came before the CM1630 was discontinued.  Link State Power Management might be the complication that forced me to reinstall both the XONAR® Audio Center™ and the MaxedTech® UNi XONAR Audio Software™ in Safe Mode when the 1630 still ran Windows 7.0.8001; in normal operation, it would BSOD toward the end of the shutdown procedure after the driver failed to register.  (Nothing close to this issue encountered to date in ubuntu® 16.04.2-LTS, as the Advanced LinUX Sound Architecture Project's 1.0.26 audio stack is far hardware-friendlier than the Vista stack still in use for Win 10 Version 1607.)

 

[justtesting]

Sorry I can't test in the affected system anymore with the DX since replacing it, but on it I've tried temporarily to disable Link State Power Management without success and the banshee scream happened, also ASPM was disabled for that slot on BIOS. On that system HPET was enabled all the time with /set useplatformclock true (timer at 14.x MHz), because for some reason, W10 refused to come out of S3 without crashing under regular "bcdedit /deletevalue useplatformclock" (using HPET+TSC on a Phenom II). Unfortunately I've never tried to disable HPET because even some racing sims like Assetto Corsa require it.

 

[Stenk]

After reading this long thread, visiting the reddit i'd like to give you my experience with this bug. I own a Xonar Stx from the Xense pack (headset sold), i experienced this extremely annoying bug for 3 years. Thanks to my noisy neighbors i'm always wearing earplug at home with a AKG K550 so when the sound decided to go wild i was protected somehow and having the finger on the mute button of my keyboard was a must when travelling from point to point in a video. (youtube, dailymotion, you name it)
 
I had 3 graphic cards during this period:
 
- With GTX 650 ti, it was only from time to time.
- With GTX 680, extremely often i wouldn't play a video without my finger on the mute button, i decided not to go on youtube anymore, and visiting the steam store was always with autoplay off
- GTX680 burned out, back to GTX650ti only time to time bug
- Bought a second hand GTX 770, same situation as GTX 680. Very often, sometimes 20minutes after i started the computer..
 
I got rid of this crap Xonar, save your ears and stress. Now i got an external sound blaster, i'll never have this quality of sound again but hell it feels so good to navigate FREELY on youtube again. Thanks for reading and thank you all for your post that helped me take the decision.

 

[wimderammelaere]

Dear @Stenk,
 
you shouldn't use a akg k550 with a xonar essence stx. It doesn't have the setting 'IEM or 16-32 ohm headsets'
and it seems the xonar xense doesn't support this setting neither according to the manual.
These are only supported on the xonar essence stx ii.
 
Practically you will burn your headphone. It will heat up and break down, because
the akg k550 has a impedance of 32 ohm. The akg q701/k701 would work with this set-up (62 ohm).
This might also have damaged the soundcard, because the heat will build up in the headphone.

 

[Stenk]

Hello winderammelaere.
 
Thank you for your advice. I do know it is a low impedance headphone, i also used an AKG K271 before this one but had no idea this could have this sort of consequences. Fortunately none of this happened. But maybe there could be a link between temperature and this annoying bug. I mentioned the graphic cards i had because the scenarios would be very different according to the different card i used. I never used the gain boost settings because the sound would be extremely loud with any gain.
 
I couldn't figure anything more precise though, the bug could happened after watching 3 videos right after starting the PC or after an extensive use. It's very hard to reproduce. I remember the first time it happened very well. My neck started to shake like crazy and i had an instant reflex to throw the headphones away, i wish that to happen to no one.

 

[Sofacykel]

I described this issue in this post:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/494565/xonar-essense-stx-random-loud-high-pitched-ringing-noise/120#post_11842340
 
I've since sold my Essence 2 and bought an Essence (1) STX. Have not had the issue in 4 months. I think the STX2 driver is bogus or the card design is bust as I've had an Essence ST before as well with zero problems. Same Windows install with the same hardware between the 2 and the STX so I can't really think of anything else. 

  Dear @Stenk,
 
you shouldn't use a akg k550 with a xonar essence stx. It doesn't have the setting 'IEM or 16-32 ohm headsets'
 
Practically you will burn your headphone. It will heat up and break down, because
the akg k550 has a impedance of 32 ohm.

What a load of horse.. Honestly, what kind of snake oil are you trying to sell here? You're confusing resistance, current and voltage I think...

 

[bcschmerker4]

  After reading this long thread, visiting the reddit i'd like to give you my experience with this bug. I own a Xonar Stx from the Xense pack (headset sold), i experienced this extremely annoying bug for 3 years. Thanks to my noisy neighbors i'm always wearing earplug at home with a AKG K550 so when the sound decided to go wild i was protected somehow and having the finger on the mute button of my keyboard was a must when travelling from point to point in a video. (youtube, dailymotion, you name it)
 
I had 3 graphic cards during this period:
 
- With GTX 650 ti, it was only from time to time.
- With GTX 680, extremely often i wouldn't play a video without my finger on the mute button, i decided not to go on youtube anymore, and visiting the steam store was always with autoplay off
- GTX680 burned out, back to GTX650ti only time to time bug
- Bought a second hand GTX 770, same situation as GTX 680. Very often, sometimes 20minutes after i started the computer..
 
I got rid of this crap Xonar, save your ears and stress. Now i got an external sound blaster, i'll never have this quality of sound again but hell it feels so good to navigate FREELY on youtube again. Thanks for reading and thank you all for your post that helped me take the decision.

Sorry about the increased incidence - it appears that certain GPU drivers make the 6 kHz scream more likely.  When I ran Win 7.0.8001, I had a bear of a time figuring out possible cause on my ASUS® CM1630-06 as upgraded, which still packs the EAH6850 DirectCU® video as of March 2017 in Win 10 Ver. 1607 10.0.144393.896.  But some of our fellow Head-Fi'ers packing systems with nVIDIA® Fermi GPU's had it more consistently.
 
As of March 2017 I have a Creative Laboratories® SB1550 PCIe x1 audio card in for the XONAR® and have not had a repeat of the 6 kHz scream so far; I've wishlisted an ASUS® TURBO-RX460-4GD5 to replace the EAH6850 (which is stuck with an AMD legacy driver in Win 10).  Actually on the hardware-acquisition list, albeit low priority, is a Heil Sound™ Pro Set™ Media Pro, which at 200 Ω impedance will survive on the hot head-amps of today's cards.  (I'd previously ruled the AKG®/Harman® K550 out of further consideration for the primary headset for the XONAR®, as I'm specifically looking for medium-Z, viz., on or about 120 Ω, for that specific card.)

 

[wimderammelaere]

@Stenk I burned a AKG 550 on a xonar essence in some months. I think it is correlated to the high sensitivity (114 dB) and the low impedance. If you want to test the heating effect, you can plugin an earphone at that setting (<64 ohm). It will quickly heat up.
Since I have changed the setting for hpet, the 6khz scream is gone. So at least for my pc, it is solved.

 

[justtesting]

@wimderammelaere Please let me understand what your fix was:
a) disabling HPET on bios
b) enabling HPET on bios, but forcing HPET timer all the time (/set useplatformclock true)
 
If it's b), it didn't work on my SB750/Xonar DX system when W10 came out, because that was my daily setting.
 
Thanks

 

[TetraSky]

After this screeching from hell happened once more a few days ago, I've taken it out of my system and now using onboard sound. It's awful, but at least my earring will thank me for it later until I get around to buy a replacement. I would highly suggest everyone else do the the same at this point or switch to Linux. A fix just isn't coming. It's been years and still nothing.
Not sure if I want to sell the card or not though, on one hand I wouldn't wish this issue on my worst enemy. On the other hand I could use the money to buy a new soundcard.
 
When it happened I was using the "latest"(UNi Xonar W10 1825 v1.81a rev.2) Windows 10 drivers from MaxedTech and had done the "fixes" told in this thread over time. It happened when a friend said something on Trillian (IM client), which played a short notification sound.. and bam, screeching from hell out of nowhere. Wasn't listening to music, youtube or anything else.

 

[DaysLikeThis]

It's happened twice for 4 month. Both time were different kind of headphones. I'm rely scared. Just Imagine - you're sitting and relaxing after hard work day, high quality music, headphones, soundcard and chillout music... and then this high pitched noise... My hands still shakes. Shall I move this soundcard to trash?
Win7 x64, ASIO4ALLv2, MSI motherboard