I just finished building my new PC and have a problem with the onboard audio. It pops, crackles, skips and jumps randomly when gaming, playing music or almost anything else. I reinstalled windows to make sure it was not that (I was running an old install previously with the new hardware), updated the drivers to the latest from VIA. I have had problems in the past with onboard audio picking up noise from every other component in my PC from fans to hdd activity causing very easy to recognise and identify issues. That is what stopped me using onboard audio in the past but from what I had heard the situation is supposed to be much improved. The audio skips in games when they slow down to less than 20fps which happens a lot, even with a Phenom II 955 3.8GHz and HD5870 Stock and 4GB DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24 (not all usable as it is 32-bit XP). Motherboard is Asus M4A785TD-M EVO which has a 785G and SB710 chipset. I also have a Corsair H50 cooler which has an unshielded pump which could be picked up by the audio chip. It is really annoying me as I have already had to spend more than I wanted to and didn't want to have to get a sound card for a while as I thought the onboard would suffice. EDIT: I think I figured out what causes it. If you activate the equalizer or bass management it screws things royally. Oh how I love onboard audio. Can anyone recommend a sound card? Perhaps this needs to be moved to hardware now. X-Fi Ti or Xonar D2X Ultra?
looks like they have a recent bios update for that board here http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=fcsXWSxnhzZE9rnR&templete=2 might want to try that out
