New Acer Aspire laptop.

[DrNomis_44]

A 2i2 could happily run on a USB1.1 connection. USB 2 is far more than capable of running a much bigger interface. USB3, though data transfer can be quicker, doesn't seem to improve latency by all accounts. In fact, some interfaces with USB3 have slightly higher latency than a similar one with USB2.

I think I've pretty much exhausted all the possibilities with regards to troubleshooting, and I think I've been pretty thorough in the process, I'm really starting to think that it's time to seriously look at buying a brand-new audio interface for my laptop, Focusrite tech support haven't been very helpful, still waiting for them to reply back to the last email I sent to them, also waiting for a response/reply from Image Line tech support too, Image Line are the makers of FL Studio 20.

From the results of testing with my Daw software, the crackling distortion issue seems to be the worst with FL Studio 20 (and only when playing back the demo songs for some weird reason), my other Daws, Reason 10, and Ableton Live 9.7 Standard don't seem to be anywhere near as bad, although I do hear the occasional pop and crackle.

Wish there was an instant fix for it other than just not using my laptop at all.