tkocsir

The audio drivers have nothing to do with this, the headphone is USB plug-and-play soundcard, and it does the crackling noise even if the output audio is something else in Windows. Also I don't think this would eliminate the annoying led turning on the keyboard. I already filed a ticket to MSI support, I am curious what they say... Thanks!

I tested the system with everything pulled out of the case, the mobo on its cardboard, but the issue still persist: when I launch GTA, I still hear a crackling noise. It doesn't even matter if the headphone is selected for audio output or not, it always gives that noise. So... should I RMA my mobo?

Thanks for the idea. I will pull the system out of the case and check what happens. But I will do it only tomorrow, as it is getting late here and I already spent hours trying to find the problem, have no more energy. So I will post the result tomorrow. Thanks!

Thanks for your quick reply, runit3. It is in a Silverstone Raven 2 SST-RV02. What should I look at exactly to find bad grounding/connection? The I/O plate is in its correct place, I guess. BTW the ASUS sound card is connected through USB, not jack. I guess the bad grounding may also cause the leds on the keyboard to turn on, so you may be right. I am just a noob at electricity... tkocsir

Hey everyone, I need your advice. I bought a new MSI Z170A Gaming M5 motherboard recently for my new build. Everything seems to work fine. But there are strange things that make me think something is not OK somewhere. Symptoms: 1. When I turn on the computer, the case fans that are connected to the mobo are spinning up really slowly. It takes 1-2 minutes to reach their full speed in most cases. But I have also seen that 1 out of 3 fans were already at full speed while the other two still tried to spin up. But this is the smallest problem. 2. When I launch GTA V, I can hear a popping/crackling sound from my headphones. Sometimes, when this happens, at the same time the leds on my keyboard all got turned on, however only the Num Lock should be turned on. When I press Caps Lock, then the led of Caps Lock turns off, and if I press it again, then the led of Scroll Lock turns off. But this keyboard thing does not happen always at the same time with the crackling noise. Sometimes the leds are already turned on when I login to Windows 10. 3. The above cracling noise with GTA happens only once after a cold start. If I reboot the machine and start the game again, there is no crackling sound. Only after a cold start. 4. The crakcling sound rarely can happen when I am just watching a youtube video. The keyboard issue can happen this time as well, however not every time happens. I tested the system with two different PSUs and the results were the same, so I excluded the PSU as a faulty hardware. GTA and the headphone had no issues with the same VGA in my previous rig. So they should be fine too. My hardware: MSI Z170A Gaming M5, latest BIOS (1.50) Intel i7-6700K Seasonic X-650 Gold, also tried with Corsair Gaming 600W EVGA GTX 980 Ti Hybrid ASUS Strix 7.1 as the sound card Samsung SM951 M.2 128GB SSD Samsung EVO 120 GB SSD ASUS PCE-AC68 wifi card Windows 10 64bit I am worried if this thing can damage my expensive hardware, so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, tkocsir

Why is it important what GPU I am using right now? Btw it is an Asus Nvidia GTX 560 and I always had Nvidia and want to have Nvidia in the future... What do you mean by small build?

Hello, guys! In the past 12+ years I always built my rigs for myself and it was always AMD based, but now I am switching to Intel. I always plan for long-term, I don't want to buy new hardware every 1-2 years (except maybe for storage or rarely the GPU). So in the past 12+ years I built only 3 rigs IIRC every 5 years maybe. So I am not really following the hardware industry, but I have put a lot of research into the following build. I plan to buy this until the mid of december. I will use the computer to play GTA V, Diablo 3, World of Tanks, city building games, No Man's Sky (not out yet), etc. And I always browse the web with ~40 open tabs in Firefox... I also plan to buy a 4K TV later and play games on that. Oh, and I love silence. I need silence. Silence is live, silence is life. So, I would like to build this computer: Case: SilverStone Raven 2 SST-RV02 (the mobo is rotated 90 degrees, so the I/O panel faces upwards) Motherboard: still hesitating on this one, the current canditate is: ASRock Z170M Pro4S (I like the orientation of the heatsinks, it's important because of the case) CPU: Intel Skylake Core i7-6700K 4GHz LGA1151 CPU cooler: Thermalright HR-22 (I will try it first without any additional fan, then I will see if it needs one...) VGA: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti HYBRID PSU: Seasonic X650 SS-650KM3 RAM: Kingston HyperX Fury 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2400MHz HX424C15FBK2/16 System storage: probably a 128 GB, inexpensive M.2 SSD, because I will run out of my budget and I can easily buy a bigger one later. (And I can use my existing HDDs too.) So... the case is not usual, I know, but I always dared/wanted to be different. It is ideal to my desk, because on the left side of the case there is the wall and I am sitting on the right side of the computer, so I can see inside, if I want. (Visual is not important for me, silence is more important.) But the real reason I chose this case is because of the motherboard layout. The rear I/O panel facing up, making the hot air easier to escape from the GPU (but then I decided to choose a water cooled GPU), and other stuff. If you check the motherboard, you can see that the notches of the north bridge's (? I am not sure if that's it...) heatsink are just ideal for the heat to escape. The case intakes air only from the bottom and exhales it only on the top. The PSU won't start its fan until a certain temperature and I hope that with this setup it will breathe easily and most of the time it will be silent. Now, I know that a single passive heatsink is enough for the CPU. But there is nothing in the way from the bottom fans to the heatsink, so I hope that those 180mm fans will be enough. If not, it's not a problem, I will then install a fan to the bottom of the HR-22. I don't plan doing overclock, I never did that and I don't want to risk anything and/or lower the lifespan of the hardware... I also don't need more than 2 PCI express 16x slots, as currently I don't plan using SLI. Maybe later I will try it, but not now. I hope everything is clear and I didn't forget anything to mention... So, I have two questions about this build. 1. What is your overall opinion about it? Are the components good together, or there are some bottlenecks or overkills? Also silence is very important for me. 2. I am not sure where to place the radiator and fan of the VGA. Concerns: if I put it to the top exit, then it will receive the heat from the CPU heatsink, so it will be less effective. If I put it under the CPU heatsink and use the fan to help remove the air from the CPU heatsink, the it will receive the VGA's heat, so again it is not very effective... Unfortunately I fell in love with this factory pre-built VGA+watercooler stuff and don't really want to buy an air cooled VGA now... The same with the case... Thank you very much! Tom Edit: I just remembered I have seen VGAs that turn on their fans only above a certain temperature. Maybe I should consider one of those, hmm...