FIXED: Premiere Pro Jittery timeline playback (bad mic input on motherboard)

[#1]

In the last 1-4 days, the audio input ciruitry on my motherboard fried (no idea how; that feature was not even in use in the time).  Now, when I try to record anything in any software from any mic (that comes in on that 3.5mm port), I just get heavily clipped static whenever there is speach.

So why post this here?  Because this -- oddly -- killed my PrP timeline playback!  Normally PrP timelines playback smoothly.  But suddenly now all timelines play with lots of random jumping around: forward, backward, several frames at a time, each jump, several jumps per realtime second.  (This is true for all PrP projects I've tried, and for all video files types, and in projects that worked fine days ago, and in very light digital overhead projects, in an overbuilt editing workhorse PC.  Also: true for both PrP 13.X & 14.X, and despite uninstall/reboot/reinstall/reboot cycles.)

This makes it impossible to do any editing work.  A bit of trawling through the forum here shows that when a bad audio device (or bad connection to a good audio device) exists on your PC, Adobe Premiere timeline playback gets randomly jittery exactly like this.

For example: https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/bd-p/premiere-pro?page=1&sort=latest_replies&filter=all

The fix: in PrP, Edit > Preferences > Audio Hardware > change offending path to another device or to "no device."  In my case, I can switch PrP's audio input to a USB mic (my webcam's), and life is good again, or I can switch the audio input to "no input" and again, PrP timeline playback is smooth as silk again.

This issue has been around for years, judging by the forum posts.  I'm posting it freshly to bear witness that it remains a current susceptibility to PrP.

[#2]

In the last 1-4 days, the audio input ciruitry on my motherboard fried (no idea how; that feature was not even in use in the time).  Now, when I try to record anything in any software from any mic (that comes in on that 3.5mm port), I just get heavily clipped static whenever there is speach.

So why post this here?  Because this -- oddly -- killed my PrP timeline playback!  Normally PrP timelines playback smoothly.  But suddenly now all timelines play with lots of random jumping around: forward, backward, several frames at a time, each jump, several jumps per realtime second.  (This is true for all PrP projects I've tried, and for all video files types, and in projects that worked fine days ago, and in very light digital overhead projects, in an overbuilt editing workhorse PC.  Also: true for both PrP 13.X & 14.X, and despite uninstall/reboot/reinstall/reboot cycles.)

This makes it impossible to do any editing work.  A bit of trawling through the forum here shows that when a bad audio device (or bad connection to a good audio device) exists on your PC, Adobe Premiere timeline playback gets randomly jittery exactly like this.

For example: https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/bd-p/premiere-pro?page=1&sort=latest_replies&filter=all

The fix: in PrP, Edit > Preferences > Audio Hardware > change offending path to another device or to "no device."  In my case, I can switch PrP's audio input to a USB mic (my webcam's), and life is good again, or I can switch the audio input to "no input" and again, PrP timeline playback is smooth as silk again.

This issue has been around for years, judging by the forum posts.  I'm posting it freshly to bear witness that it remains a current susceptibility to PrP.