PC line in volume problem

[Baldurand]

So, this is a weird one to explain. To preface I am using the line in on my Asus z690-I motherboard to get audio from my monitors line out port (not headphone an actual line out port) and I'm using "listen to" to hear it on my pc. I've got nice headphones and whatever, so I'd prefer the audio that way. My issue is whenever the input volume to the line in is loud enough to move the "needle" in the windows volume mixer it will boost the audio much louder. an example is if I fire a gun in a game on my Xbox the audio will get super loud and clear and as the volume goes down it randomly cuts, and everything is much quieter. the benchmark I used to tell was background noise. A quiet song would suddenly get louder as the gun was fired. I've tested this with the line in plugged into multiple devices and tried multiple cables. as far as I can tell it's definitely my pc/windows causing the issue, but everything I've tried hasn't worked (like disabling audio enhancements and so on). If anyone has any advice or wants more clarification, please let me know. I can also grab some screenshots/recordings to show what I'm hearing/seeing if need be.

[GhostRoadieBL]

 

 

go to your sound control panel - line in - properties - advanced tab - uncheck "enable audio enhancements". change the same setting in your headphone output (sometimes called normalize audio)

 

I expect this is how you set it up already but just to be sure for the line in - levels tab - have a youtube or some audio playing on the PC outputting to your headphones at your normal listening volume then set the line in level to match with (preferably) the same video or track playing, this should balance the line in to the PC out.

 

[Baldurand]

3 hours ago, GhostRoadieBL said:

 

 

go to your sound control panel - line in - properties - advanced tab - uncheck "enable audio enhancements". change the same setting in your headphone output (sometimes called normalize audio)

 

I expect this is how you set it up already but just to be sure for the line in - levels tab - have a youtube or some audio playing on the PC outputting to your headphones at your normal listening volume then set the line in level to match with (preferably) the same video or track playing, this should balance the line in to the PC out.

 

I just turned off audio enhancements to absolutely everything and the issue is still there. I also noticed while doing this that when a sound plays where it bumps the volume. That the line in volume will actually go passed 100 percent on the bar (picture as example. also keep in mind that when I say increases volume I mean overall. so, when I fire a gun the background noise in the game also gets louder for that period. it's almost like at a certain threshold it just doubles the audio or something. its relation to my pc volume is fine as it's easy to lower, it's that it's really distracting when the volume is all over the place. I will note that I found if I lower the game max volume that the line in is playing (in this case halo from my Xbox) that I can avoid it ever happening. but lowering the volume on every single game I ever play is not exactly a perfect solution.

[GhostRoadieBL]

This is a weird one, it's possible there's something on the console or monitor side which is messing with the output but I don't know enough about those sound processing steps to help

[Baldurand]

2 hours ago, GhostRoadieBL said:

This is a weird one, it's possible there's something on the console or monitor side which is messing with the output but I don't know enough about those sound processing steps to help

Yeah I tried plugging my pc line in directly to a few devices so I know it’s not the monitor or console, I also tried a few different cables. It’s so odd I don’t even know who to contact. Either asus or Microsoft id think?

[Ericthegreat]

Hey same issue here on a Asus z690 board, we are such a weird use case I wonder if there is a fix.

[PseudoResonance]

It seems to be some kind of dynamic gain thing, but I can't imagine why anyone at Realtek? thought this was a good idea. Probably to allow the device to pick up signals from a wide range of devices, no matter how strong the signal, but simultaneously make the input utterly useless. Although now that I think about it, not even this makes sense, seeing as loud sounds are made louder, and quiet sounds are made quieter... It's like some kind of awful background noise filter?

 

If I setup the audio chip (through Realtek drivers) to route the input back through my output (this completely bypasses the OS, and keeps latency much lower), the volume stays constant as expected, so it's not a hardware issue. There's something strange going on once that audio is passed to the drivers itself and Windows.

[neonoxd]

seem to have the same issue on a asus z790-f

[DeusNoctem]

Same issue on a new PC build. Same peripherals from my previous PC and same setup as far as sound routing and software setup. Commonality between us all seems to either be RealTek, ASUS MB, or Windows.

 

I don't know which is more annoying, the sound going higher when playing games or when listening to music and there is a break or a quiet moment and the sound drops.

 

Definitely seems like some kind of odd adaptive gain control - which is super weird.

 

MB: ASUS Z790-E
Headset: Razer Nari (Wireless USB)

Sound route:
PC (USB OUT) to GoXLR (Firewire IN) > GoXLR (Headset 3.5mm OUT) to Ground Loop Isolator (3.5mm IN) > Ground Loop Isolator (3.5mm OUT) to PC (Line IN)

All enhancements are turned off, minus the Razer software running. Hopefully someone can come up with a fix for this...

[esacrewol]

dude... same exact problem and this is the only other thread i found talking about it. has anyone found a fix? i'm on asus rog crosshair viii extreme x570 mobo. using a condenser mic with yamaha mg06 line mixer going into the line-in jack.

[Fusl]

I'm experiencing the exact same problem on an ASUS ROG Strix X670E-E while it was never a problem on an ASUS TUF B350M-PLUS. I'm running the latest available BIOS version for this mainboard (1416):

 

 

I also upgraded from firmware 4.501.0000-0003.0000 to 4.501.0000-0005.0000 for the audio controller which also made no difference:

 

 

Having the optional Realtek stuff from the ASUS website installed vs not installed also makes no difference (I started having this problem ever since day 1 where I didn't have all the drivers and software installed yet and even after installing everything, it still persisted to this very day).

[Fusl]

I was able to work around this issue by connecting the audio device to my front panel microphone port and then configuring that front panel microphone port as line-in port in the ASUS Realtek software:

 

 

The problem seemingly only exists for devices connected to the rear panel line-in port, the front panel microphone port used as line-in port doesn't have this problem at all.

[Zhem]

Thank you for posting this! Led me to my solution!

 

TL;DR - The Asus ROG STRIX Z690-A rear panel has both Line In and Mic In jacks. Issues are on the Line In jack, but Mic In works fine. 

 

Just upgraded to new motherboard so I could upgrade my CPU - put in a ROG STRIX Z690-A GAMING WIFI D4. I do a lot of streaming and used the Line In regularly with my old Asus board. Thought it was OBS doing this, but after a bunch of testing like yours I discovered it's the actual Line In and no amount of driver updating will resolve. Very disappointing, seems like a software issue, but may specifically be hardware with the new boards as I see it on several of the recent generation and no fixes in sight, once I figured out what to Google to find others with the issue.

 

Unfortunately, I'm not able to change the assignment for the front panel input to 'Line In' - may be because I'm using an older case so the option isn't there. If the Mic In on the rear panel starts acting up, I have a cheap USB audio interface I can use, just seems stupid that after so many years without issue with my old Asus Motherboard I'm having to find a workaround.

[homehome15]

On 8/7/2023 at 5:09 PM, Zhem said:

Thank you for posting this! Led me to my solution!

 

TL;DR - The Asus ROG STRIX Z690-A rear panel has both Line In and Mic In jacks. Issues are on the Line In jack, but Mic In works fine. 

 

Just upgraded to new motherboard so I could upgrade my CPU - put in a ROG STRIX Z690-A GAMING WIFI D4. I do a lot of streaming and used the Line In regularly with my old Asus board. Thought it was OBS doing this, but after a bunch of testing like yours I discovered it's the actual Line In and no amount of driver updating will resolve. Very disappointing, seems like a software issue, but may specifically be hardware with the new boards as I see it on several of the recent generation and no fixes in sight, once I figured out what to Google to find others with the issue.

 

Unfortunately, I'm not able to change the assignment for the front panel input to 'Line In' - may be because I'm using an older case so the option isn't there. If the Mic In on the rear panel starts acting up, I have a cheap USB audio interface I can use, just seems stupid that after so many years without issue with my old Asus Motherboard I'm having to find a workaround.

I have been having this issue for a while too on Windows 11 with a ASUS ROG Strix Z690-E mobo,

 

And yeah, changing from line to mic in seemed to fix this, but I'm really confused why this is the case.

 

I might dig into the bios later and see if there's a setting for that but it's very unlikely, and maybe it could be solved with a bios update or something? Overall just a super weird bug/feature to be present and I can't really think of any use case even in a professional mixing setting (where a computer line in is unlikely to be used over a professional low noise line mixer anyways).

 

I will say however that I never had this issue on my old motherboard where I also used line-in with the same mixer-> line in-> dac -> amp -> headphones (the old mobo being a ASUS MAXIMUS IX FORMULA LGA1151 DDR4 DP HDMI M.2 Z270

 

all in all weird thing idk