SteelSeries 3H USB Headphone Problem

I just bought a SteelSeries 3H USB headphone, and it seems to have some major static whenever a sound is played. If any sound goes on, the headphone will play out choppy sound with static mixed in. Sometimes it works for 5-10 minutes after a bootup, but then the problem appears and ruins it. I've tried this headphone on my other two computers and it works perfectly fine, one running xp, the other vista, so it's not the device's problem. Anyone know what's going on?

I also discovered that my headphones work fine @ 16 bit, 16000 Hz, but fail at 16 bit, 44100 Hz and anything beyond that. Anyone have a solution?

 

Ok, I just reformatted my computer (only the OS install drive), and nothing's changed, it still gets that static and stuff.

 

Help anyone?

 

Which sound device do you have in your system?

 

do you have another PC to test it and isloate the problem to your headphone and not the PC?

perhaps that would have saved you a reformat...

 

Yea I tested it on two other computers, the headphones work fine, no problems at all.

Under device manager it says Realtek High Definition Audio as the sound device. I don't know what other things I should check.

 

You might wanna try updating the sound drivers to see if that helps at all.

Click here, go to High Definition Codecs, and proceed to download the appropriate version.

Also, do you have any codec packs installed on your system?

 

I did a full system reformat, and then updated the drivers for all the sound drivers, and it still gets the static. The headphones themselves are a seperate soundcard or something, and I disabled my system's built in soundcard. It still gets the static even when the system's soundcard is disabled, and uninstalled. I don't think it's a driver conflict =/
It would've been so much easier if it was...

 

Unplug your laptop(from the wall), then play the sound. If it goes away then you got a ground loop.

 

Nope, just tried it, and it's still there, so it's not a ground loop. Also, it might help to know that the music that plays before the welcome screen comes on upon bootup plays crisp and clear, and then everything just goes downhill after those few tones.

 

Remove all your other sound drivers for other hardware, including the motherboard. If that doesn't work that IDK what it is.

 

I tried that, but every time I uninstall all of them, Windows driver installer automatically reinstalls them the second I uninstall them.

Edit: Well it automatically installs "High Definition Audio Device"

 

Is that the driver that the headphones are using? I know with some of those USB devices they use the sound card of your motherboard but just route the signal through the headphones.

 

I think it uses its own sound card. When I hooked it up to my old 6 year old computer, it sounded the same.

Edit: Yea I uninstalled my sound card, and when I plugged the headphones in they still worked. So the headphone has its own soundcard.

 

Hmm... well thats all the ideas I've got, I know that some sound drivers just don't work well with some laptops. I've seen that happen before(But mostly with firewire sound cards).

 

Whoopee, the problem is gone, but alas, a new one has come!

These headphones hate me.
Now the sound is weirdly choppy.
If any of you are interested in hearing the crappyness, then the file is here.
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=651f31c1c2d1975236df4e8dca141969e04e75f6e8ebb871

Okay the problem came back lol, as I expected...
It's more of a crackling noise than static I guess, my description before was flawed.
Here's how the problem sounds like:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=651f31c1c2d1975236df4e8dca141969e04e75f6e8ebb871
Yea I know I just ruined one of the greatest intro pieces ever, sorry

 

Yeah, that doesn't sound like a ground loop or a driver problem to me, those are usually more of a high pitched sound, this sounds like distortion across pretty much the entire frequency range. Guess the only thing I can tell you is to get some headphones that aren't USB.

 

Believe it or not my headset is USB powered with audio jacks and if i plug the USB power lead into a hub i get massive static down the line, plug it directly into the PC and its gone, might wanna try a different USB port as a suggestion.

 

Yea, after some extensive Googling, I found out that plugging this thing into a Hub connected to the laptop might work, and as luck would have it, I had a hub lying around. Now it works like a charm, lets hope not just for 15 mins again XD