Can video card drivers affect non-digital audio output?

[Chikara]

Seasons greetings!

So my audio uses external speakers connected to the MB jack outputs - eg non-digital. Other playback devices that show in settings, I have disabled - these are HD Audio devices x 2 (my 2 monitors), and "Realtek Digital Output" (I assume this the separate digital output from MB).

I've had these same speakers ever since I had this PC, many years now, actually even from my last once prior to this, and I never had a problem until a few days before Xmas, where the audio would have some random interference or glitches, including occasional pops. This is with sound files saved locally that never had problems before when I played them. I also noticed when playing videos on YouTube, there would be a slow but noticeable, and increasing, lag between video and audio. If I refresh it, it would be back in sync, but again slowly but surely it would go out of sync again regardless if playing the video on monitor 1 or 2.

Before I do any more detailed troubleshooting, I'd like to know if there is any way that somehow the video card drivers could be a cause? I am thinking maybe yes for the video / audio lag, but I could not see how that's possible for an audio-only playback.
I did recently update my graphic card drivers maybe a few days before this problem happened. Perhaps just coincidence, but I'd like to eliminate this as a possible cause before I do more detailed troubleshooting. Yes I could roll back to the previous video card driver to test, but that's a bit of a pain to do, hence asking here first.

Thanks in advance

Win 10 64 bit, fully updated, MB is Asus Maximus VIII Hero, and Graphics card is GeForce GTX 970 if that matters.
Edit: Forgot to mention, I have already uninstalled and reinstalled the latest audio drivers from the Asus support page

[Bryan]

Others will have a better answer than me but, if it was me, I would disable all audio drivers and only install Realtek.

[piroska]

Others will have a better answer than me but, if it was me, I would disable all audio drivers and only install Realtek.

+1

[Chikara]

I mentioned in my first post that all other audio devices are disabled already.

[Bryan]

I think you said that "other playback devices that show in settings, I have disabled - these are HD Audio devices x 2 (my 2 monitors), and "Realtek Digital Output". Realtek should be the only one you need to install.

Sorry if I am misreading you!

[Chikara]

Maybe I misunderstood what you meant - you mean I should completely uninstall those other ones, not just disable them?
Those other ones have already been disabled for a long time, well before this problem happened.

[tweak'e]

i suspect the video drivers are clashing with the motherboard drivers rather than the audio drivers.
check to see if you have the latest motherboard drivers. failing that roll back video driver.

[Chikara]

OK thanks, in that case I am going to uninstall of the graphics driver and do a clean / fresh install of the previous version, and see if that's the culprit.

[Chikara]

I did a uninstall of the graphic driver and a fresh install of the previous version, but unfortunately this problems persists. When I play video, slowly but surely the audio gets out of sync with the video. Testing with YouTube, I tried both in Firefox and Chrome and the same happens in both. If i hit pause, then play again, it's back in synch but slowly goes back out of sync again.

Before this, I had already tried uninstalling then reinstalling the motherboard audio drivers from the official Asus site, Version 6.0.1.8468 from here: https://www.asus.com/sg/Motherboards...Desk_Download/
It seemed to install without any errors, but I just tried the built-in Windows sound troubleshooter, and it shows a problem as "Generic Audio Driver" detected, but it cannot automatically fix it.
Would this indicate the audio driver uninstall / reinstall installation failed, even though it told me no errors and completed successfully? Or could this relate to some other issue maybe?
What should I try next to troubleshoot this?

Extra info if it helps, Windows shows 4 playback devices, but 3 are already disabled by myself:
- High Definition Audio Device (disabled) - think this will be from my first monitor
- High Definition Audio Device (disabled) - this will be second monitor
- Realtek Digital Output (Realtek High Definition Audio) - disabled

Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio) - default device

[tweak'e]

starting to sound more like a codec problem.