PERMANENT reversed audio channels problem?

MIETAS · Post by **MIETAS** » 27 Dec 2021, 02:12

Hey Blur Busters community. I'm a long time lurker and wanted to share my experience with you guys on a very weird topic.
In 2017 I've moved to new location - to one of these blocks of flats (from the early 80's, kinda meh).

Right off the bat when I started playing on my old PC in that place I noticed that audio channels are reversed (self explanatory).
From that moment I had 4 different PC's and zero shared parts between them:

1. my oldie the one that I moved with,
2. 6700k,
3. ryzen,
4. actual 10900k setup

Current setup was connected to power in two schemes(tried different sockets):

Wall socket --> UPS PowerWalker VI 1200 --> power conditioner furman AC-210A-E --> PC (I stopped using furman cause it wasn't helping at all)
Wall socket --> UPS PowerWalker VI 1200 --> PC (current)

I addition to that - I've been changing headsets like 5 times or so. Every single setup that I mention has reversed audio channels.

And heres the thing: I moved my current rig (Apex XII, 10900k, 5700XT, PSU HX1000) few kms away from my place to another apartment and tried it there: audio channels were FIXED. Didin't try online play due to lack of internet connection - focused only on audio channels.

Problem is weird and in my current place I am able to fix it only on software level. I don't really know what affects it, but the power delivery is the only cause I find reasonable. Gaming on those PC's was never consistent and something always feels off with these rigs - no matter how hard I tweak it BIOS/OS level (GPU OC, RAM OC, CPU OC etc.). I even tried 3 different ISP's with one business connection - zero improvement.

PS
I know that I've mixed two problems here (reversed audio channels and pretty awful gaming experience) but I think these are connected.

That's it, thanks!
MIETAS

akylen · Post by **akylen** » 27 Dec 2021, 16:23

Thats very insteresting

Unixko · Post by **Unixko** » 27 Dec 2021, 16:38

akylen wrote: ↑
27 Dec 2021, 16:23
Thats very insteresting

Ye one more guy who realize how his pc work is due to power quality welcome my boy

nuggify · Post by **nuggify** » 27 Dec 2021, 16:39

Signed into this site for the first time in months because, low and behold an actual interesting thread about this problem has popped up. Very, very interesting and I just wanted to verify that you did not change a single thing software/hardware/peripherals when making the move. I have had this problem for a very long time (the poor PC performance side of it) and I would be very curious if you have found a strange secondary symptom that correlates with it. PM me if you want an invite to a group researching this issue.

MIETAS · Post by **MIETAS** » 27 Dec 2021, 16:42

Unixko wrote: ↑
27 Dec 2021, 16:38
Ye one more guy who realize how his pc work is due to power quality welcome my boy

Well that's true but I haven't found any intel on anyone who had this problem permanently(audio) and couldn't fix it on hardware or/and OS level.

MIETAS · Post by **MIETAS** » 27 Dec 2021, 16:44

nuggify wrote: ↑
27 Dec 2021, 16:39
Signed into this site for the first time in months because, low and behold an actual interesting thread about this problem has popped up. Very, very interesting and I just wanted to verify that you did not change a single thing software/hardware/peripherals when making the move. I have had this problem for a very long time (the poor PC performance side of it) and I would be very curious if you have found a strange secondary symptom that correlates with it. PM me if you want an invite to a group researching this issue.

None changes, I even bothered to separate cables(peripherals and power) as they are at my current place and used UPS as I am using right now.

Anonymous768119 · Post by **Anonymous768119** » 27 Dec 2021, 17:09

In my case there is definitely relation between audio and gameplay experience in means of responsiveness and smoothness. I have big difficulties in tracking enemy with sound. Sound quality in general is poor. I suspect harmonics.

dervu · Post by **dervu** » 27 Dec 2021, 17:13

Did you use same audio peripherals, headphones/speakers on all PC setups or did you also try different ones?

MIETAS · Post by **MIETAS** » 27 Dec 2021, 17:17

dervu wrote: ↑
27 Dec 2021, 17:13
Did you use same audio peripherals, headphones/speakers on all PC setups or did you also try different ones?

I tried the same equipment and different ones aswell (pcie sound cards, headsets and obviously on-board audios).

YouTube · Post by **Chief Blur Buster** » 27 Dec 2021, 17:35

Power is not directly responsible for swapping audio channels.

I know that many motherboard driver bugs cause reversed audio channels, but that's not power related.

However:

-- There might be a big dominoe-effect or rube goldberg thing going on, where some bug is triggered from a happenstance of power issue (e.g. initialization issue), in a "one-in-a-million" type thing. Without proof -- I would suggest following other avenues of troubleshooting.

-- If you're using analog Dolby Stereo (old fashioned pre-digital Dolby), the audio phase of L/R is responsible for generating L/R separation. A shift in phase of the channels can technically create an audio reversal. Power problems might cause phase shifts. There are also situations where power adds some noise to audio, that gets confused as reversed audio channels. Use Dolby Digital instead or other digital methods of L/R instead of analog methods of L/R that is phase-dependent.

To avoid this, use digital means where possible. Switch motherboards, use a USB sound card (they're now just tiny USB dongle with a headphone output, or simply a headphone with USB plugs; that's a tiny soundcard chip built into the USB plug).

Those can also solve the problem --
avoid that problematic motherboard headphone jack if you can!

You CAN use a USB headphone, or a USB soundcard dongle ("headphone plug to USB adaptor") to solve your problem. Cheap, fixes your problem without a motherboard swap, often improves your sound quality over crappy 5-year-old motherboard sound, and you get to call it a day. In year 2021, these USB adaptors are literally a $250 SoundBlaster card miniaturized into a $10 dongle.

...Also, buy a high rated micropoll-capable PCI USB card. Never share your USB chip between an 1KHz-8Khz mouse/keyboard and a soundcard dongle if your motherboard has only one USB chip for all the motherboard USB ports...

You did say you tried a sound card already, so your problem is possibly something else -- testing a completely different computer (or even a console) may be what the doctor orders. It might even be an issue specific to certain games too, where some games are known to glitch by swapping audio channels.

I have renamed the thread title to remove the bait & redirect the discourse to a wider net of technical & scientific legitimacy. Thanks.

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