ASRock Ex4 Gen3 and 'noisy' PCI-E interface

[Storrm]

Hi all,

I'm pulling my hair out over this one, so any help appreciated. I just purchased an Asrock Extreme4 Gen3 and a Xonar DX PCI-E sound card. People started to complain that when I spoke in-game (CoD:BlackOps), they could hear a very distinctive 'buzzing' sound, so I recorded it and here's what it sounds like. I've posted some questions in the Sound forum as well as on the Asus website but no one can tell me whats causing it. Having done some tests, if I remove my GPU (GTX580) and play of the HD3000 GPU on the i7, I dont get any feedback. I've tried an older GTX260 and get the buzzing sound, but if I use a Creative x-fi PCI-E card I get no such issues.

So this leads me to think that the PCI-E bus is very 'noisy' on the Asrock mobo's or the card is faulty. Either way, is there any other peeps out there with the same combination and are any of you having problems with a noisey microphone? The best way to tell is to put your Mic into Monitor mode and then start up a game.

Thanks.

 

[Storrm]

Got the latest drivers from the Asus site and moved the card to an adjacent free x4 slot (the other x1 slot is partially blocked by my H50 radiator). The problem does appear to relate to the card rather than anything else, but could this be a faulty card or drivers? I'm starting to think it cant be drivers as there would be a mountain of other people complaining about the same issue. So do I risk RMA'ing the card and trying another? I'd love to hear from someone running this card in the same mobo to see if they have the same problem.

 

[Storrm]

I RMA'ed the card (thanks OC!) and bought a Xonar Sense instead. No noise problems what so ever. Now a very happy person (I even like the new Sennheiser's that came with it!). Dont forget a I tried a Creative X-Fi Titanium as well and that worked with out noise, so its not the board as far as I can tell. I just didnt like the X-Fi after listening to the Xonar