Solved! Onboard/Mobo audio issues with no seeming fix in sight.

[fountainebill]

For the longest time, for about a year now, my onboard audio has been messing up/defective.

At first, I thought it was the front ports on my case, I replace them, same issue.

I try my back ports, same issue.

The sound will get very low/distorted/broken up at half volume. And I have no idea why.

I've reinstalled drivers, upgraded from Windows 7 to 10, restarted my computer, tested different headphones, I have tried everything short of doing a fresh reinstall on my motherboard which I don't really want to do especially if it doesn't fix it.

I will plug the headphones back in after a while, the sound works fine. Then within a few hours/a half day/day later, it goes right back to being broken, and I have zero idea why.

 

[doolittle]

Sadly, the audio chipset on your board was selected for having the lowest price, not the best quality or durability. A new sound card would do you justice. Have had a few failures in my time, welcome to the club!

 

[fountainebill]

Sadly, the audio chipset on your board was selected for having the lowest price, not the best quality or durability. A new sound card would do you justice. Have had a few failures in my time, welcome to the club!

This is my build https/pcpartpicker.com/list/bzQHWD

My sound is perfectly fine when plugged into my monitor. Which is my NVidia soundcard. The towers sound is Realtek

 

[doolittle]

That makes sense, the GPU sound card and the on-board Realtek are separate devices so that would also be a good alternative to workaround the Realtek problem. Also good it is new and should be under warranty, if you choose to replace it.

One thing you can do to confirm it's not a windows problem (and without having to reinstall anything) is to create a bootable USB stick running linux, like Ubuntu, which you can run in "live" mode off of the USB stick and see if you also have sound problems there.

If you do, you can probably say with confidence the audio chip is having some problems and would justify an RMA replacement.