Insanely loud white noise through headphones - Despite low volume setting ~

for starters i would swap back to official drivers in case its a software glitch. at least until you can rule it out as a variable.

likewise i'd check the cans out with a different source to rule them out as a variable but i highly doubt anything on their end is causeing problems.

are you absolutely sure that the shock was caused by the soundcard and was not caused by an esd discharge built up on your body (static shock)? in any case you need to be careful as such discharges have been known to damage equipment in some cases.

i'm running harder to drive headphones than the ones you are using and even on amped sources while music is playing i've never had issues with electrical shocks when inserting or removing the headphone jack on a solid metal connector. at most i hear a pop in the headphones (so i try to avoid plugging them in "live" but no other issues). if the soundcard itself is producing this charge perhaps something is defective.

white noise can also be caused by emi so i'd run a test with the soundcard in a different pci slot, without any wifi turned on, without speakers turned on (just running headphones), and with minimal hard drive activity. sometimes things like wifi, hard drives, speaker magnets and in general any higher powered devices can cause white noise however since it is not tied to the amplifier it would only be low level and only as loud as your volume setting.

you can also try changing some windows settings
you can also try swapping from the rear headphone jack to the front headphone jack (or vice versa)

i'm not sure i would feel comfortable connecting $250 headphones up to a potentially disfunctional soundcard. until you resolve the issue you might want to experiment with cheap $10 cans/earbuds




now... what do i think might be the issue?

my first thought would be that its software based and for some reason the volume control is glitching. while i've not heard of this happening with soundcard software i've experienced this with other programs involving sound and its documented to happen in certain scenarios with some audio editors.

my second thought would be that there might be something wrong with the soundcard on a hardware level, perhaps with the amplifier which is causing a voltage spike.

of course i'd still run through checking everything out to see what effects they have on the issue. i would suggest testing out on cheaper cans until you get the issue resolved though but thats your call.

Hi
If you are getting shocks from metal work and jacks then you need to make sure that your computer is properly grounded this could be potentially dangerous.

It may not be static but an electric shock from a high resistance or non existant ground.
if it is static then when you get a shock this will discharge all the static and you will not get another shock for a while if it is a poor ground then you will get a shock then be able to get another shock straight away.
Neither the power supply or the anti surge will operate correctly without a good ground connection.

Yeah if it only happens once then you should be ok its probably static.

If you have any doubts about your sockets wiring then these are very handy
http/

You problem screams driver/software issues to me. I've had the same thing happen to me countless times with my external sound card (I use an L6 UX1, instead of traditional cards), and it's a bitch to deal with. Sometimes you can update the driver, and the problem goes away; other times, you have to delete your drivers, and start fresh. I've had this happen a lot with my UX1, because I use it in a fairly unorthodox way; but you'll likely be able to fix it by fiddling around with your drivers.

Changing the output settings from 24-bit/48Khz to something else is only going to benefit you if your sound card cannot handle the output (unlikely, as the specs claim it can handle 192 Khz sample rates). I don't have any experience with the Uni drivers, but try the Asus drivers. If neither the Asus drivers, nor the updated Uni drivers work, then there's likely another problem that's screwing up your driver compatibility. Every time I've had such an issue with my UX1, it's usually due to some system process, or a driver malfunction, but reinstalling drivers tends to work well.

As far as the small shock that you experienced, that could be a number of things. Since you are on carpet, and it didn't repeat itself after the first shock, I'd suspect it's static built up from being on carpet.

Final note, which I see go ignored on a daily basis due to poor education: If you value your headphones, NEVER unplug your cans while there is any volume being allotted to them. I can't stress this enough. Ever been familiar with the popping sound that happens when you plug them in/unplug them? While it's okay on cheap stuff that can be replaced, it's horrible to do with your beloved cans. If you know any sound guys who've dealt with complete audio noobs, they'll have a story or two about someone unplugging a cabinet before the gain was turned down; POP goes your speaker. I was in a little shoebox of a room when some moron did this with a really nice cab; blew both the woofers because of this mistake, and half of us pissed ourselves and hit the deck. When any gain/volume is allotted to your headphones, there is a current being pushed, and that current can take a toll on the drivers when it's endured over and over. While most of the ones you will experience from computer case jacks, or a cell phone, can be relatively harmless, unplugging while there is sound being transmitted is far from a good idea. Some people get away with doing this for years, and their speakers/drivers never fail or fry... but the audio quality will suffer from repeated abuse. Take care of your cans, and they will last much, much longer. If you can manage to DIY/buy a volume knob to plug into, I'd highly recommend investing in one. It's more wiring, but it will help ensure your headphones don't receive constant abuse from plugging/unplugging them into a jack that has a constant current being pushed. I learned this during my DJing days, and I know people who have either blown their cans from simply plugging/unplugging them improperly, or know someone who has been the victim of this. While the chances of frying the drivers are low, it's something stupidly simple that will help you avoid ruining a big investment.

The community update drivers are going to support various programs differently, and may have better integration/etc.. That isn't to say there will be a noticeable quality difference, but possibly a performance difference. Sometimes opensource drivers are a good thing; in my case, the ASIO drivers work flawless (under 5ms latency with my UX1 when running Ableton, at its maximum sample/bit rate), and the L6 drivers can barely keep up with a 200ms latency. It all depends on what the hardware is being used for. Do I benefit from the ASIO drivers in anything other than audio production? Nope. I still need the L6 drivers to run it lol. I have a feeling the Uni drivers are similar to the ASIO drivers, but in the sense that it's for a 'daily driver' instead of a specialised one.

On the topic of plugging/unplugging: I mentioned that because I've met countless people who have told me, "it's harmless, dude." I think they believe that because the pop is relatively quiet, compared to the pop on something like a 100w sub woofer? Regardless of the reasons, I figured I'd point that out, as it's literally the same thing. Glad to hear it's something you try to stick to, though, as I'd hate to hear you lost your momentum over something stupid. I like how that last sentence played out... I'm a nerd.

if the Asus drivers don't fix the problem, I'd like to know. If they don't, let me know what fixes it; I'm interested.

Hey, I don't care if it takes a while to hear back on this. It's a problem I've suffered as well, and I'd like to see what works for others. It definitely doesn't seem to be a common enough occurrence to make people jump on it with a certainty of what happened (I remember searching for hours when it first happened to me), so I'd like to see what does work in the long term. Like I've said, the most reliable thing, for me, is a fresh driver installation.

And to answer your quandary over what would happen using monitors with the sound card's driver failure... you'd probably have a heart attack. This happened to me many times in one night, and it was profoundly annoying. Since I have my sound running through an independent speaker system, with its own volume, and my UX1 is just the computer interface; so when I'm listening to something at low volume levels, there isn't much to worry about. When this first happened to me, I was watching a video that had poor audio quality (extremely quiet), and I was leaning in to understand the audio better. With my volume up to roughly 60% on the amplifier, my sound driver decided to shit on me. That's the story of how I nearly had a heart attack at age 22... at 4am. Since then, I pass on anything that requires me to crank up the volume to hear it at a reasonable output level. If I can't amplify it enough before it reaches my sound system, I'm not watching/listening to it. I learned the hard way that your sound output (through the speakers) should rely on a separate volume control.

Learn from my mistakes, and do what I do; run a cheap USB sound card, crank up the output on your OS to 100%, and independent sound card to ~80% (or whatever is best for ideal output without clipping), and run your speaker volume based on what the perceived volume is through your amp/shelf system (most likely won't be a high output). Do that, and you're less likely to visit hospital, and possibly need a new chair, when this occurs. Whenever you run studio monitors, or anything that has a decent amount of audio power, I always recommend using a studio sound card for delivering audio over a PCI card (better price for the equipment you get). Something like the Focusrite 2i2 will give you balanced 1/4" outs, independent headphone and monitor controls (hard controls, not just OS/software), and you can still use it with an amplifier to avoid having the output directly rely on your sound card's output. It's much more hassle, but it's going to be a far superior method to running audio directly off your PCI sound card. Not only will it be less likely to make you shit yourself, but you'll also have a much better range for output volume (which makes a huge difference), while still maintaining crisp clarity when pushing higher gain/volume levels.

Just thought I'd add that in there, since you are using studio monitors. You can probably find a used USB sound card for cheap, and run that with a mixer/anything that supports balanced in/out with a dedicated gain and a master that you can monitor for clipping. That's the best way to get the most out of your audio and prevent your system from scaring the piss out of you when a driver fails. Take what's useful from that for your use/needs. That's how I will set up my studio when the money starts rolling back in.