New Graphic Card Causing LOADS Of Audio & Sync Problems

So you’ve just installed your shiny new graphics card – congrats! But after booting into Windows, you soon notice a problem: the music and audio cuts out a lot, or it keeps going out of sync with the on-screen footage. While this is a frustrating side-effect of a GPU upgrade, it’s often easy enough to fix.

Key Points

• Driver Clashes: Sometimes your graphics card is too new for your motherboard, or there is a driver clash, and this can result in various audio problems.
• AMD or NVIDIA Settings: The GPU’s control panel has various audio settings, some of which can result in the audio cutting out – or being out-of-sync.
• Check Windows Settings: Windows also has many audio options to run through to debug this problem.
• Also Check: That your browser and game software is up to date. Finally, a faulty graphics card can result in audio problems.

First Thing To Check: Does This Happen With All Speakers/Headsets?

Your monitor is probably connected directly to your graphics card (with a HDMI or DP cable), instead of via your motherboard:

This naturally allows your graphics card to generate video, and output this display on the screen. However it also means that your GPU has a role to play in audio playback – especially if you’re using your monitor’s speakers. As a result, it’s worth testing out other output devices and see if they’re also plagued by audio problems – because this will give you key debugging information.

So I would plug in headphones into an audio jack, or a headset into a USB port, and see whether these have out-of-sync audio or cutting out music:

If these approaches work fine, it’s probably a sign that the audio issue is caused by your new graphics card. But if these also have problems, you’ll have to dig a little deeper into a range of settings – including a myriad of Windows sound settings.

Tip: Also check to see if this problem happens for all applications (including games), or just some of them. This is important to know because if you only experience this problem when playing music on YouTube (for example), it could be a browser issue. Whereas if it happens in most/all applications, it’s likely a driver or setting problem.

Update Your Drivers & Motherboard BIOS

Changing a key component like a graphics card can cause a range of settings and drivers to go out of whack, so before diving into dozens of Windows settings, I would start by upgrading or reinstalling three key areas:

1. The relevant sound controller.
2. Your graphics card drivers.
3. The motherboard BIOS.

Reinstall Windows Sound Controller

You know when you plug in new headphones and after a few seconds, a Windows notification appears that says ‘New headphones added’? Well, under the surface Windows has added a new ‘sound controller’ – which is how Windows keeps track of the new audio device (headphones) and allows music to come out of that device.

If you have built-in monitor speakers, separate speakers and a USB headset (for example), you will probably have 3-5 different sound controllers. It’s possible that upgrading your GPU has caused one or more of these sound controllers to become corrupted. To fix this, search for “Device Manager” and then expand out “Sound, video and game controllers” towards the bottom:

Sometimes it’s not immediately clear which sound controller relates to which audio device, but “High Definition Audio Device” often relates to your speakers (whether they’re built into your monitor or separate) and “Bluetooth music” relates to a Bluetooth headset. If you’re having a problem with a specific speaker/headset, right click it and select “Uninstall device”:

Once you’re done, right click somewhere and click “Scan for hardware changes”. This will force a re-check of any audio devices that you have, and reinstall any drivers for them from scratch. This can often resolve any temporary audio glitches that are caused by hardware upgrades like a new GPU.

Tip: If you aren’t sure which sound controller relates to which audio device, I would uninstall them all. Scanning for hardware changes should then re-initialise them as required. But if any are missing, remove the audio cable/USB, restart your PC, and add the cable back in. This often causes Windows to correctly add the device back.

Update/Reinstall GPU Drivers

Graphics card drivers can be buggy, especially AMD’s ones that get randomly reinstalled! When you first install a graphics card, it’s possible that you have Windows’ own graphics drivers through Windows Update. Or maybe you did install the proper manufacturer’s drivers, but they became corrupted.

Either way, I would start by uninstalling the drivers. For example with AMD GPUs, you can run the ‘AMD Software: Adrenaline Edition’ executable and select to explicitly uninstall the drivers:

Alternatively you can find the graphics card listed under Device Manager (expand out the “Display adaptors” section), and select “Uninstall device”:

You should then restart your PC and install the graphics drivers fresh, by downloading them from the manufacturer’s website:

• AMD Drivers And Support: Select “Graphics” and then select your exact graphics card model from the next box.
• NVIDIA Driver Downloads: Select your exact GPU model via the “Product Series” and “Product” drop-down options, then choose your specific Windows version under “Operating System”

Once you have downloaded the drivers, double click the .exe to start the installation process:

I usually do a full install because this ensures that all drivers (including any audio settings/software) are installed, along with the GPU’s control panel (which can contain further audio settings). This can be especially useful if you have multiple audio devices/speakers that you change between regularly.

Update Your Motherboard BIOS

Finally, sometimes audio glitches are caused by your graphics card being a bit ‘too new’ for your motherboard. The BIOS is the firmware that your motherboard and other hardware use to properly start up and set-up all the different devices you have connected – including any speakers.

Therefore it’s crucial that your BIOS version is kept up to date. The exact process for updating your mobo’s BIOS can vary, but you often download the latest version from the motherboard maker’s website, put it on a USB pen, and then access the BIOS update facility via the BIOS menus.

For example, I have an Asus motherboard and so I go to Asus’ Download Center, locate my exact motherboard (the B550M-Plus) and download the latest driver for it. I then put this on my USB pen, restart my computer and keep hitting “F2” (to access the BIOS). I then go into the “EZ Flash 3 Utility”, and upgrade my BIOS:

(On that note, I just realised that my BIOS is waaay out of date – whoops! I currently have a BIOS version from 2021, but there have been five BIOS updates since. Double whoops. Be right back.)

Once your BIOS is fully updated (like mine now is!), boot back into Windows and check to see whether the audio issues have been resolved.

Check Windows Sound Settings

If you’re still having issues, it’s possible that a Windows setting has become corrupted or erroneously changed as part of the GPU upgrade. There are a few specific things I usually check for here:

• Is ‘hardware acceleration’ or ‘audio enhancements’ enabled?
• Check sound blaster and encoder options
• Are there multiple sound ‘cards’ (for the same thing)?
• Run the audio troubleshooter

To get started, right click the speaker icon in the system tray (bottom right) and select “Sound settings”.

Hardware Acceleration or Enhancements Might Be To Blame

The system sound menu will vary a lot depending on whether you use Windows 10…

… or Windows 11:

However in either case, you should be able to access further sound settings by clicking on an option called “Manage sound devices” or by clicking into a specific speaker/headset and selecting more properties.

If you see an option enabled like “Audio enhancements: Device Default Effects” (shown above), you should try turning it off. Sometimes these audio effects can use your graphics card, and it’s possible that your new GPU is struggling with this option being enabled for whatever reason.

You might also see an option like “Allow hardware acceleration of audio with this device” within one of the many Windows sound settings, and this should also be temporarily disabled or enabled to see if this helps solve the audio problems.

Drill Into The Sound Dialog For Encoding Or Other Enhancements

In addition to the sound settings I cover above, you should also open up the sound dialog (properties) for each speaker/headset that you use, because there are even more sound settings to look over! To do this, click Properties or ‘More sound settings’ within the control panel:

You should then select the relevant audio device, and select “Properties”. If you see options relating to audio encoding or enhancements, try disabling these because they might be causing the audio cut-outs (or sync problems) that you have been experiencing.

Multiple Sound Options Might Be Clashing

Have you ever gone to select a new output device under sound settings, and seen the same option listed multiple times? This duplication can be harmless, but in some cases it can cause audio sync issues (especially if it’s a sign of corrupted Windows sound settings).

It’s possible that changing your graphics card has confused Windows into creating extra sound controllers (i.e. playback devices).

To try and fix this issue, you should disable or remove any duplicate and unnecessary output devices from Windows. The first way to do this is to open the Sound play devices menu from the control panel, and then right click the relevant option and click “Disable”:

Alternatively you can go to ‘Manage sound devices’, and disable a device there. Both these options are explained in this helpful video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDANsNBzVCw&ab_channel=DreamWebTuts

Run The Audio Troubleshooter

If nothing else has worked so far, you should run through the Windows audio troubleshooter. You can usually do this by searching for “audio troubleshooter” in the Windows search bar, or by right clicking the taskbar and selecting “Troubleshoot sound problems” in Windows 11:

This process will ask you some questions, and then automatically run through a range of checks to try and detect and fix the problem with the audio device. This is a bit of a ‘stab in the dark’ fix, but Windows troubleshooter can sometimes find and fix corrupted sound settings – so it’s worth a try.

Could Chrome (Or Your Other Browser) Be At Fault?

Another possible explanation for weird audio glitches is that Chrome (or your other browser – like Safari, Edge or Firefox) is out of date. For example, most versions of Firefox only have partial AAC (advanced audio coding) support – and so upgrading to the latest version might result in more stable audio behaviour.

The exact process for checking for updates varies between browsers, but you usually have to go to the ‘More’ menu, and go to “About [browser]” or “Check for updates” and then the browser will let you know if there are any updates to be installed.

It’s rare that a graphics card upgrades results in browser-based audio problems, but it could potentially happen – especially if your graphics card is a lot newer and introduces new audio codec support.

Check Your GPU’s Control Panel

Whether you have an AMD or NVIDIA graphics card, you should have a control panel on your PC that allows you to check its performance stats and also change various settings. The AMD panel is called “AMD Software: Adrenaline Edition” and the NVIDIA one is called “GeForce Control Panel“. If you don’t have these, you can download them from the AMD or NVIDIA website.

It’s worth digging into these because they often have various sound/audio settings. For example, if you launch the AMD control panel and go to “Settings” (click the cog in the top right) and then “Audio & Video”, you will see:

Noise suppression will actively try and reduce any noise from your environment, allowing you to focus more on your gaming sessions. However the way this works is that it scans and manipulates the audio that is playing through your headsets. While this often works well, it could result in out-of-sync audio or music that sometimes cuts out.

So it’s worth digging into your GPU’s software and toggling various audio settings, to see if that helps resolve any problems with your sound.

Sorry… But Maybe Your New GPU Is Faulty

Finally, if all your audio problems started after installing a new GPU, it’s possible that your new card is to blame – sorry! If you still have your old graphics card, try reinstalling this and seeing if the sound issues are resolved. If they are, then it’s likely the card is the issue – and you might need to start an RMA process to get a refund or replacement.

Tip: Before doing this though, try quickly changing out the cable. For example if you’re using a DisplayPort cable, switch back to a HDMI cable and see if this improves things. Or if your GPU only has HDMI ports, try out a different HDMI cable. Sometimes this can resolve weird video or audio problems with your PC.

Related Reading: GDDR6 or GDDR6X For Gaming (Plus Is Less GDDR6X Worth It?!)