Audio output in Windows 8 is strange

[Vollezar]

Strange is the only word I could come up with.
I( am using an on board audio on ASUS M5A97 r2.0. Which is Realtek.
For some reason the output is often only comes out of only one speaker (left). I thought that it could have been something wrong with my speakers, but I noticed that whenever I play games the sound comes from both speakers. I have also disabled the HDMI sound device for my video card, to no avail. I thought the two might have had a conflict. I tried changing various settings in Realtek control panel and Windows own sound settings, but nothing worked. I am out of ideas.

Anyone know what I can do? I have a 2.1 speaker setup, for now and the sub works just fine.
Thanks.

 

[Cobalt006]

Have you tried uninstalling your drivers and reinstalling them or just up dating them

 

[Vollezar]

Yup. Removed them completely. Reinstalled drivers from the mobo cd and it was the same. Removed again and got the drivers from Realtek site. Still the same. I sent a tech support e-mail to ASUS today. Maybe they know something.

 

[Zoltan Head]

What sound source are you using when the sound only comes from the left speaker?

 

[Vollezar]

Source is the same at all times. The built-in Realtek.
If by source you mean media. It could be anything, aside from games. Even a 6 channel encoded movie, Was watched a movie last night that had a 6 channel audio. At the beginning it was playing sound out of all speakers. I had to pause the movie to go for a smoke. Restarted. sound only comes from left side. It's like this all the time. I listen to radio through my pc all day. It's a 64kbps/mono broadcast of old shows. And the sound shifts through out the day (when windows 7 was installed on this PC it always played through both speakers and even sub was active during some sound effects).

 

[Zoltan Head]

Source is the same at all times. The built-in Realtek.
If by source you mean media. It could be anything, aside from games. Even a 6 channel encoded movie, Was watched a movie last night that had a 6 channel audio. At the beginning it was playing sound out of all speakers. I had to pause the movie to go for a smoke. Restarted. sound only comes from left side. It's like this all the time. I listen to radio through my pc all day. It's a 64kbps/mono broadcast of old shows. And the sound shifts through out the day (when windows 7 was installed on this PC it always played through both speakers and even sub was active during some sound effects).

No, the Realtek is not the source, the source means "where the signal comes from" (you said that it didn't affect games, so presumably it would be a music file, video file, external audio input, music production software etc. etc.)
If it wasn't for the games exception, I would say it's a hardware problem, as it is it sounds unlikely.

 

[Vollezar]

I thought it might have been hardware problem as well. Then I did remember that when Windows 7 was running there was no issues. Since I am going to go back to Windows 7 I guess I don't have to worry about it. Still is a bug in either Windows 8 or the driver from Realtek.

 

[captainawesome]

I'm guessing it's on those shoddy Realtek drivers. Do yourself a favour a pick up a real sound card Creative and Asus make nice ones

 

[Vollezar]

Actually realtek is pretty good. I am not an audiophile so I don't need a super-duper card. For games and movies realtek produces pretty good 5.1 sound.

 

[Jad Chaar]

Go to the Realtek HD Audio manager, go to the digital output tab, and chose dolby digital live (is this available in Win 8 since it does not support dolby?). if you want a great sound card for only 60 bucks, get a DSX