Two nights ago, I was sitting here doing what I do, and suddenly I start seeing the little box pop up repeatedly telling me that a device had been unplugged and then plugged into the audio port. And after a couple of minutes, I got a notice that some USB devices where no longer functioning. At the time, I was not using my headset, and nothing was using sound. But the notices just kept coming, and I was trying to figure out what was going on. Finally, I reached up to the front panel to pull the plug for the headset out, and the first thing that I realized was that the area was wet, and then a drop of water hit the back of my hand. I look up, and there was a hook up there that I had ignored since I moved in, and water was dripping from it. I immediately powered down and moved my computer. I removed the side panels, dried what I could reach, and aimed a fan at the computer overnight.
The water leak was fixed within an hour of the time I found my computer wet, but I left my computer sitting on the other side of the room with the fan aimed at it for 8 hours. Finally, I had to know if it still worked. So I hooked it back up, and fired it up. It got to the desktop, and I logged in, and all appeared to be well. And then I plugged in the headset, and all I could get was a crackle and a pop. I was not happy...
Later on in the day, when I had more time, I tried the audio ports on the back of the motherboard, and the headsets work there, but the volume is much lower from those ports than the front panel ports, and it has been that way since I put the system together. So the headset is not dead, but the from panel is either toast or is still wet down inside the plug.
So I spent a couple of hours digging around last night checking reviews on headsets and various other things related to them. I keep coming back to the Hyper X Cloud II. One thing that is attractive to me right now is that it is USB based, but will also work without the USB base if you prefer doing it that way. It claims to be virtual 7.1, but I know that virtual 7.1 with a 2 can headset is not much to brag about. But what I want is the headset amp and the flexibility that I would have in just being able to use the 3.5mm plugs if I wanted to.
I'm going to wait another day or two before I make a choice on exactly what I am going to do, in the hope that the front panel will dry out and start working again. But if it does not, I will probably go with the HyperX Cloud II headset.