Sennheiser PC37X randomly goes bad after disconnecting the cable ?
Greetings, Yesterday I was using my headset like normal with my macbook, just listening to music and on a call with people like usual, and the headset was perfectly fine. The stock wire that came with the headset is extremely long and yesterday it annoyed me very much that it kept getting tangled with itself, so I decided to see if the cable is replaceable. I pulled out the cable from the headset and saw the adapter, and looked online for a replacement. Upon plugging it back in, the audio sounded extremely muffled and washed out. Im not sure what I did wrong to make it mess up like that as I've always taken good care of it, ive had it for about 2 years and its always just been chilling on my desk, but anywho I thought the cable just went bad and ordered a replacement. The replacement came, and the issue is still persistant, so I am not sure what the issue is I've tried multiple different headsets and the issue is not with the port, and I also tried it with my windows laptop and...
Apr 23, 2024
My main computer has a Realtek 8111E LAN controller. I thought that maybe some old drivers were still lingering around, even though I did all I could to remove them though the Device Manager as well as following CEntrance's instructions.
Fast forward to today. I recently put together a new computer, which happened to have a Realtek 8111G LAN controller. Totally different hardware when compared to my main rig(i5 vs X4 860k, 980 vs 750 ti). I decided to give the Slim another shot, since this machine had a brand new Windows 10 install with the latest drivers. Installed the driver, plugged up the Slim. Sounds great, as usual. Unfortunately, despite the Slim on the latest firmware and the 7.4.19 driver on the website, I crashed a couple hours in during testing. I had previously stress tested the system for 48 hours straight before I plugged in the slim too, leading me to believe that there are still software issues. Same symptoms - freeze for ~1min, then BSOD. DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION is what came up on the BSOD. Sigh.
Therefore, if you've got a Realtek LAN controller, I can't recommend this product. Other computers with Intel and Broadcom/Atheros LAN controllers which I've tested with have been no issue. Hardware wise, the slim is great. Extremely solid body and it sounds good. I've had no issues with the micro USB connector. It's just the software/drivers which really hold this product back from being a great product.
For those who are curious, we are not the only Audio company affected by Windows 10. In a nutshell, Windows 10 was redesigned for lower system latency (faster response time). In theory, this is supposed to be good for audio, but it was designed in such a way that device drivers are all dependent on each other and can cause OS crashes. If a network card driver happens to wait just a hair longer for some Internet traffic to arrive, it causes a chain reaction, messes up all the other drivers and causes a system crash. We discovered the hard way that older Realtek LAN drivers were prone to this behavior. New ones are better. Essentially, all device manufacturers are forced to release new drivers that follow the new protocol. IMHO, well-designed operating systems should be crash-free, but I guess we don't make the rules...
In either case, we are about to release the CEntrance Universal Driver Version 8, which is developed from the ground up for Windows 10 compatibility. It is designed to minimize inter-dependencies and avoid system crashes. We have basically re-written our driver from scratch in the last couple of months. We expect that it will be out by the time the units from this drop are shipping to customers. Also, all units from this drop will have the latest firmware pre-installed at the factory.