New Acer Aspire laptop.

[dave.king1]

I just gave that a try, plugged my headphones directly into the laptop via the headphone socket, made sure I have the Realtek integrated audio selected as the main sound device, and plugged the 2i2 into a spare usb port, audio plays back clean with no crackling or distortion.

The only time there is crackling and distortion is when I'm using the 2i2 as the main audio device.

Given that the 2i2 works in your desktop PC and you've tried a number of different USB cables then it looks like the issue is in the USB component of the laptop

Lot's of windows driver stuff here https://www.google.com/search?source...4dUDCAc&uact=5