Hey everyone,
I’m in a bit of a bind here. I’ve been working in IT for nearly a decade, but I’m stumped by a really strange issue I’ve been grappling with over the past year. Here’s what’s happening: when I’m watching videos on services like YouTube, Hulu, or Netflix on my second monitor, the video randomly becomes choppy, and the audio cuts out completely. I’ve checked, and it doesn’t seem like it’s a network problem since there’s no buffering involved.
Sometimes the video runs smoothly, but the audio just stops. When that happens, I can fix it temporarily by switching the audio playback device, but I have to do this every five minutes, which is frustrating. The audio is sent via DisplayPort to my monitor, then to Creative Pebble speakers using a 3.5mm jack. I also experience this issue with headphones connected through a Scarlett Solo DAC using USB-C, so I’m pretty sure it’s not a peripheral issue.
Here are the specs of my rig:
– Windows 11
– AMD Ryzen 7800X3D
– 64GB DDR5 RAM
– 4 NVMe SSDs, 2 additional SSDs, 1 HDD
– Gigabyte Gaming OC RTX 4090
– Gigabyte X670 Aorus Elite AX motherboard
– Corsair RM850x PSU
I have updated all drivers and searched for solutions extensively, but I’m at a loss. I’d rather not wipe everything with a fresh Windows install if I can avoid it. Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
5 Answers
Sounds like there might be an issue with the signal transfer between your devices. Have you tried completely uninstalling your display drivers using DDU and then reinstalling them? Also, swapping around cables could make a difference too. Give that a shot!
You could also try reinstalling Windows over your current install instead of doing a full fresh setup. I had to use that option once when I messed up some system files, and it actually worked! Also, consider connecting your audio directly to the motherboard instead of through the monitor to see if that clears up the audio dropout.
I’d recommend doing some process of elimination. Start closing down non-essential apps and unplugging unneeded devices. It might also help to run a virus scan just to rule out any issues there.
I’ve had similar problems with Hulu and Netflix. Sometimes those streaming services can be really buggy, so it could just be them acting up. YouTube, on the other hand, has worked fine for me—so odd! It might help to check if there are updates or known issues with those specific sites, but I think the video players on those platforms can be hit-and-miss.
I get that, but I feel like this could be a hardware or software issue rather than just the sites being buggy. I think it might have something to do with the GPU or CPU managing resources.
Try a few things: change to a high-performance power plan, and make sure to disable hardware acceleration in your web browser. Those steps can sometimes fix playback issues.
Totally agree! Also, you’d be surprised how often weird audio issues come from unexpected sources—like I once thought it was my speakers causing feedback, but it turned out my phone being near them was the culprit!