Audio issues

[Ranom]

Hi everyone. My sound quality has spontaneously turned into crap within a day and i have no clue why. I have noticed that there's high frequency static when audio is played. Also there's crackling sounds. especially when i change volume somewhere , a crackling sound appears (In a youtube video for example). And also the general quality of sound seems to be lower and distorted.

The problem is the same with different headphones, and it persists when i change my output from my external soundcard to my MB's integrated soundcard.

I've tried updating my drivers (GPU, CPU, MB, Chipset, Sound card, Bios) I've also tried disabling onboard sound in bios and increasing the PCI Latency in bios (to 96)

I've tried searching for malware etc, i did find some and my computer is clean now.

My hardware:
MB: Asrock P43Twins1600
CPU: Intel E7300
GPU: Raden HD 4830
Soundcard: SB Audigy
OS: Windows 7 32bit

Anyone got any advice? Should i buy new hardware to fix this? Any help would be appreciated.

[transporterfan]

What do you play your sound output through? Stereo speakers, surround sound speakers?
Where do you plug your headphones in? To the computer directly or the speaker system?
Had a bad stereo speaker system which went like you described.
Turned out to be a failing power supply and nothing to do with the computer at all.

[MOVIEGEEK]

It could be hardware but it sounds like a driver issue, go to Device Manager and see if there are any problems. Uninstall your soundcard drivers and run CCleaner or Glary Utilities to clean the registry, then reinstall the soundcard drivers. Did you install a codec pack recently?

[Ranom]

What do you play your sound output through? Stereo speakers, surround sound speakers?
Where do you plug your headphones in? To the computer directly or the speaker system?
Had a bad stereo speaker system which went like you described.
Turned out to be a failing power supply and nothing to do with the computer at all.

I plug the headphones directly to the computer.

I have a 450w power supply (i think), but all of the electricity is connected to a single plug on the wall.. But if it's a failing power supply, how can the audio change so radically in such a short time?

[transporterfan]

The power supply was on the speaker sytem, not the computer's.
@MOVIEGEEK is right. If your headphones are direct to the computer then it's most likely to be a driver issue.

[Ranom]

I've tried updating my drivers several times but it didn't help.

Could it be a connection issue? Should i try opening my PC and check the wires?

[Ranom]

Okay i got something. When i turn off/on the switch to my LAMP, i hear the same crackling in my headphones. (The lamp is obviously in the same electricity system as my computer)

So it has to do something with electricity, right? Anyone got ideas what i should do now?

Please answer, i know some experts must know the answer with this in mind

[transporterfan]

Youtube aside (it might be video codec issue), have you tried playing an audio CD? Does the problem persist?

The lamp is drawing power. What you hear is a voltage spike. You should use a surge protector to protect your system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surge_protector

[Ranom]

I tried listening to a video on youtube, and the exact same in my hard-drive.
Everything was the same, except that the high-frequency static is gone. So.. partly a codec issue? How can i fix my codecs?

[transporterfan]

No. Not a video. A music CD, from your drive. If it's a video codec issue you will suffer the same result be it on your computer or on the internet. Let me know if it plays well or is just the same as the video file.

If you useMediaInfo on the video file on your HDD, what audio format does it contain?

[Ranom]

I can't try the CD thing, as i never use it and i don't have any disks with audio lying around, sorry.

(I converted the video file to wav and got the same results.)

[transporterfan]

I can't say for certain. Wanted to test if the particular audio decoder (used in the video) was the one which was acting up. If you keep using that particular video for testing you will never know...because the audio decoder/encoder might be corrupt or need updating.
Same for video codec.
Did you load a codec pack? If so, which one? If you loaded more than one you might have a conflict issue.
What does MediaInfo say? Can you post the text version in quote box please?