Asus S500CA Audio Tinniness

[Davidmv1]

So I've had my Asus S500CA (VivoBook) for about two and a half years now, and it's starting to show its age a bit. However, just a couple days ago the audio decided to go tinny on me. I'd been having some WiFi issues related to a low signal, and thought it had been connected to a recent software update. I ran System Restore, and when that didn't solve anything I undid it. I thought it didn't do anything, until I plugged in my headphones and noticed that the sound was completely off, lacking bass and varying in volume.

This has only happened once before, when attempting to update my graphics and audio drivers via Asus LiveUpdate. The same thing happened, though oddly enough the System Restore solved that. My current guess as to the cause is that there's a program running that changes the sound from speaker output to headphone output, adjusting the various filters. My evidence for this is that I've heard the output audio change when plugging and unplugging said headphones. Also, my laptop has two other areas of secondary programs crashing, namely with screen color balance and touchpad gesture recognition, though I was able to isolate the offending programs (ColorUService and AsusTPLauncher, FYI), and fix them.

Before it's brought up, it's not my headphones, as I've tried a couple pairs and the same thing exists. Can anyone help me get my correct audio back?

 

[webworkings]

I would honestly suggest you restart the device in "Safe Mode" and see if the problem is still there. If it isn't, then there is something other than the standard options on the laptop that is causing the problem. If it is still there, then you would need to look at all the settings as well as possibly hardware issues.

First try the "Safe Mode" though.