Gigabyte P25W-CF4 --- Sound Issues

Hey everyone, just got my P25W-CF4 from Newegg.

Quick review: love it, like the physical design, it's very fast, seems intelligently put-together for the most part. I'm coming from an Alienware M17x R2, and while the Alienware was certainly more sturdily built (metal vs. plastic), I hugely prefer the smaller P25W.

However, there's one big problem in that the sound is completely bonkers. Right now it's stuck on what I think is some kind of Karaoke mode where the vocals in any music are very quiet and reverby, but the other instruments are mostly fine. In video games, the bass is completely absent and it sounds extremely tinny. I've tried every combination of Dolby on/off and installed/uninstalled as well as Realtek installed/uninstalled and can't figure it out.

Does anyone know how to get the sound working properly on this thing?

 

There is also a slight static pop-pop sound in the headphones about every second, like a heartbeat, that immediately stops whenever the computer starts playing an actual sound.

 

I had the same problem .. installed and updated SmartManager and SmartUpdater solved my problem for now !