I bought a custom-built PC with a Ryzen 5 7600X, B650 motherboard, 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory, a 1TB NVMe SSD, an RTX 5060 8GB graphics card, and a 500W power supply. Since setting it up, the computer has taken roughly 1 minute and 22 seconds to boot. More seriously, audio randomly cuts out during games and sometimes while watching videos. Just before the sound disappears, I may hear a brief high-pitched beep. At the same time, keyboard input becomes delayed, the game stutters, FPS drops, and the entire system feels unresponsive for a while before recovering.
The problem has become more noticeable in Marvel Rivals, where the audio stutters and sometimes the computer cannot play animations or videos properly until it recovers. The issue seems intermittent and did not appear during the store's stress test. The seller says it is probably software-related, but the computer is still under warranty until October, and I have recorded several videos showing the problem. I am not very experienced with PC troubleshooting. What should I check, and should I ask the store to investigate specific hardware as well as software?
4 Answers
Try isolating the audio connection. Plug your headphones or speakers into the motherboard's rear audio port instead of the case's front-panel jack. If possible, also test another headset or a USB audio device. If the problem only happens through one output, the front-panel wiring, jack, or audio device could be involved.
Check whether the SSD is nearly full and review which programs launch with Windows. A full drive or excessive startup software can explain slow booting, although it would not necessarily explain the temporary audio and input freezes. Also test normal browsing or video playback while monitoring CPU, GPU, temperatures, memory use, and disk activity.
The symptoms could come from a driver timeout, storage problem, unstable memory settings, motherboard issue, or power-related instability. A stress test passing once does not rule out an intermittent fault. Since the system is under warranty, ask the seller to reproduce the issue while checking system logs, memory stability, SSD health, BIOS settings, and the power supply rather than dismissing it solely because of the stress test.
Start by checking the basics: update the chipset, graphics, audio, and motherboard drivers, and see whether a BIOS update is available. Windows Event Viewer may also show errors at the exact time the audio and performance problems occur. If updating does not help, a clean Windows installation can rule out a damaged software setup, but keep your warranty documentation and videos.
Related Questions
Lenovo Thinkpad Stuck In Update Loop Install FilterDriverU2_Reload