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Rift Crackling Audio

simonjkendrew
Explorer

I’ve been using an Oculus Rift on my PC for almost 18 months
without any audio problems, but as of about 5-6 weeks ago, the audio through my
rift headphones (both left and right) has a crackling sound, which is becoming
very annoying and a little disorientating when using the headset. I’ve read
other forum posts of similar issues and have tried various advice from other
people, but cannot seem to resolve the issue.



The crackling sound only happens through the rift
headphones, my attached PC speakers or other headphones are OK. The crackling sound does not appear to be related to
specific games or applications, because it also happens if I play a test sound in
the Windows Sound > Playback > Rift Audio Headphones applet. The
crackling can sometimes be really bad, and other times not so bad. There are
some occasions where the crackling doesn’t happen at all and the sound plays fine,
although this doesn’t happen very often; the majority of the time there is a
crackling sound on the audio.



For the first 18 months before the problem started, the Rift
USB cable was connected directly to one of the rear motherboard USB3 sockets
(no extension cables). I haven’t changed the hardware in my PC prior to
this problem starting.

I’ve tried the following advice I’ve seen on other posts,
but none of these have solved the problem:



PC Spec



  • Win 10 Pro (64 bit) Version 1803 (build 17134.81)
  • i7-6700K, overclocked to 4.5GHz (done by manufacturer)
  • ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming Motherboard
  • 16GB
  • 2 x 500GB SSD
  • EVGA GeForce GTX 1080
    8GB












RIFT Setup



  • Oculus app version 1.26.0.582280
  • 3 x Rift sensors (2 connected to motherboard
    rear USB 3.0 sockets, 1 connected to motherboard rear USB 2.0 socket (using the
    USB2.0 extension cable supplied by oculus) 
Any help in solving this would be greatly appreciated.
44 REPLIES 44

scottseguin
Honored Guest
Ok so I have been having this issue out of the box. I was about to return the headset as defective and get a replacement as I have only has it 2 days. My issue sounds the same. I never notice the crackling till at least 48 hours out of box however, The audio is constantly dropping while I play BeatMaster or anything else. The only fix I found to get audio back is switch spacial from on to off. But you guys all say it's software so I don't need to return right.

Genericat
Expert Protege
Had no issues with audio using my Rift for months. Then after an Oculus automatic update in the spring, I have crackling in the Rift headphones. Especially if the signal is loud, it clips / crackles. Maddening!

pmt666
Honored Guest
I have the same problem here, and exact same situation as SJD1969. 
Everything was fine until the drivers did an automatic update. The the crackling / clips occurs... I have to manually delete the drivers in the device manager to get it back to normal. 

One strange strange thing is that it will happen more if i just booted the computer (from the off state) rather than a reboot. 

Sapulidi
Explorer
I just want to put my experience out there so I searched for some posts with 'crackling audio' in them.
The most problems I experienced in VR are due to sensors/HMD (USB devices) no longer properly configured. My current setup is working fine however.

I have a ton of USB devices connected to 2 USB controllers, might be useful to list this for other people (asus rog strix b450-i gaming mobo):
  1. mouse (connected to USB 3.0 back)
  2. keyboard (connected to USB 3.0 back)
  3. Kraken aio cooler for cpu (connected to 8-pin on mobo internal USB2.0 hub)
  4. Kraken aio for gpu (connected to 19-pin USB-A splitter on mobo)
  5. Gaming headset (connected to USB 3.0 back)
  6. Fan controller (connected to 8-pin internal USB2.0 hub)
  7. RGB controller (connected to 8-pin internal USB2.0 hub)
  8. USB 3.0 hub with active extension cable with 2 rift sensors (connected to USB 3.0 back)
  9. USB 2.0 extension cable for 1 rift sensor (connected to 19-pin USB-A splitter on mobo)
  10. USB 3.0 extension cable for RIFT headset (connected to USB 3.1 back)
TL:DR
I also experienced low FPS and/or audio crackling. Things that fixed it for me:
- reconfigure/reset sensor tracking: This is what I usually do first if I experience any sorts of bad fps in VR. It seems that if your sensors are not keeping track properly it affects the performance a lot.

- (re)install latest on board audio and lan drivers: So I had a couple of blue screens lately and when I rebooted all of my audio was crackling. After some googling I found out it could actually be your LAN/Audio driver causing a tonne of problems too. So I did that and the crackling immediately stopped.

-unplug all VR usb devices and uninstall them (including drivers) via device manager: This is the golden bullet as far as I'm concerned. After reshuffling USB ports when fiddling with my configuration the USB event logs (device manager -> properties usb device -> events) weren't looking pretty. You should unplug, delete and uninstall your VR devices/drivers. After that you reboot the pc. Wait for it to fully reboot and plug the devices back in. My Oculus Rift (cv1) software was still installed and the drivers got downloaded and installed just fine.

After this I had no more problems in VR, even with the ton of USB devices I currently have running. And everytime there are performs/audio problems it's sensors and/or USB configuration.

I hope this will help someone out in the future 😃

Earth4Mars
Honored Guest
Hi
Possible quick solution

I fixed mine by plugging the Rift USB into a different port
actually from USB3 to USB2
also, my motherboard is old and USB3 isn't that reliable (first USB3 on market then, so suspecting that fixed it.
zero issues from the first attempt