Specs - Build Type.:Liquid Cooled Gaming Rig.
CPU:i7 'Skylake' Processor-6700k 4GHz clocked to (4.6 GHz).
Main Board:Gigabyte Z170X G1 gaming MB.
Graphics:Gigabyte G1 Gaming Geforce GTX 970.
Ram:Corsair 32GB DDR4 Vengeance C16 White Led @ 3466MHz.
Cooling System:Custom Quad XSPC / EK Liquid Cooling.
Well after spending around $800 Aus on my new Mb alone, I got my new system up and going and have to say
I was quite happy with every thing on it and how it performed. Right up until the point I started having issues with the Audio on the board.
I am using the Gigabyte Z170X- G1 Gaming Mb. All of a sudden when I started Windows 7 the audio was coming out
full volume and distorted. The only way I found to combat this was to mute the volume on the task bar then un-mute again.
This would bring my audio levels back down to where they were actually set.
One of the main reasons for buying this board was because of the great on-board audio feature's. And the audio is great when it's running right. When researching this issue online I found a lot of other user's were having the same problem not only in Win 7, but in Win 10 also.
This issue would only present itself when using stereo headphones with a 2.5mm jack. And I tried 3 different headphone sets and all had the same results, loud audio. When trying a Usb gaming headset the audio levels were normal. (Seems like a driver issue to me). Now the reason I am using stereo headphones with a 2.5mm jack over a gaming headset is because my Sennheiser Studio headphones (I feel) sound and feel much better than any gaming headset out there. And the other reason also is so I can fully utilize all the audio functions in the Sound Blaster software. With a Usb headset, you can't do that as the software doesn't detect a Usb connection. Since Usb Headsets are becoming more and more common, you would think that the makers of these Mb's and software writer's would start inter-grating them into the software (so Usb is detected when connecting).
When I sent a support ticket to Gigabyte about my issue they said re-install Windows and use updated drivers.
I new this wasn't going to work but I did it anyway. And sure enough after install their updated drivers, not only did I still have my loud audio problem but I had lost ALL Usb 3.0 and 3.1 functions across the entire board. Nice one Gigabyte. And all they had to say was "These drivers have been tested with Win 7". Then they asked me to find out if Win 10 user's were having the same issues. Not that this has any thing to do with me as I am running Win 7. I told them too Google it themselves, knowing full well that they are aware of these same issues in Win 10.
Well after going back and forward's with support ticket's with Gigabyte and no solution, They said " There is no problem with the new driver's. Just send Mb back to be tested at your retailer". Well after a response like that, I found my audio issue wasn't the main problem any more. It was Gigabyte's lack of empathy and acknowledgement that they had a serious problem with this board. Whether hardware or software related. It was easier for them to tell me to return the Mb for testing. I have no doubt that they know there is an audio problem with this Mb. They just don't want to deal with it.
Luckily for me, I had cloned my C Drive before the audio started playing up and reverted back to that. No problem now. All seems fine. So what was actually the cause of the audio problem? I not sure. If I was to hazard a guess, I would say driver related. That went well for a month and the problem came back again out of the blue. I did some intel chipset updates from Gigabyte and now my audio seem's fine again. Normal levels. So I am at aloss as to what had caused it. Hope reader's find this helpful.