New Acer Aspire laptop.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:

A great mate of mine just popped by for a visit, he brought his Scarlett 2i2, a 1st generation device, but very similar to my 2i2, with him, and we tried it out with my laptop, and we were getting the same audio sound quality issues with it as I was getting with my 2i2, so I'm thinking that possibly rules-out my 2i2 as being the cause, I've tried re-installing the most up to date beta driver that Focusrite tech support emailed me (they actually emailed a download link for it), and I was still getting the audio quality issues, I even got my mate to listen to the crackly distortion and he agreed with me that there was an issue I was experiencing, I wasn't just imagining, or hallucinating it, it was really occuring for real.


So as far as I can tell:


1, It's not a hardware issue with my Scarlett 2i2, since trying my mate's 2i2 gets the same result, no improvement in sound quality.

2, Installing the very latest beta driver doesn't fix the issue.

3, It appears to be an issue with my laptop, whether it's a hardware issue or a software issue I don't know since it's hard to determine.

4, I don't think it's an issue caused by Microsoft's latest Windows 10 cumulative updates for 2020, my desktop pc has the exact same cumulative updates installed and my 2i2 works fine with it.

5, I don't know if it's an issue caused by my laptop's usb ports, my 2i2 works fine with my desktop pc's usb 3.0 ports.


Could it be that my laptop's usb ports aren't providing enough power to my 2i2?, my desktop pc has an 850 Watt power supply in it.


What I don't understand is, if it is a hardware issue with my laptop, involving the usb ports, why would my 2i2 work perfectly well for at least a year (I purchased my 2i2 in about January or February last year), and then suddenly stop working on the 20th last month?, you'd think it would be more likely to not work properly at all.

[dave.king1]

From what you had already confirmed I don't think the 2i2 was ever the issue I still think it resides in the USB area within the laptop.

Have you tried generic ASIO drivers

[DrNomis_44]

From what you had already confirmed I don't think the 2i2 was ever the issue I still think it resides in the USB area within the laptop.

Have you tried generic ASIO drivers

Haven't tried a generic ASIO driver yet, but FL Studio does come with one called FL Studio ASIO, I guess it won't hurt to give it a go, FL Studio also comes with a driver called ASIO4All, unfortunately, when I re-installed FL Studio 20.6.2 on my laptop, I didn't get it to install FL Studio ASIO in the process, so there are no generic ASIO drivers installed on my laptop.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:

I've just noticed another issue with my new Acer laptop, for some weird reason, my laptop's touchpad appears to be not working like it is supposed to, Device Manager reports that it is working properly, yet when I try moving the cursor by touching the touchpad, it stays exactly where it is, in Windows settings, I've got the on/off switch set to on, I've even done a driver update to the most latest one available, yet the touchpad still doesn't seem to work as it's supposed to......weird.


Surely the touchpad not working wouldn't have something to do with my 2i2's audio issues?, I can't see how that would be so.....


Update:

I just did a quick google search on the touchpad issue and found the solution, all I had to do was to press the F7 key and now it is working like it is supposed to.....thank God for that, I was starting to think that the touchpad had somehow gotten damaged by the bluescreen I got before the 2i2's sound issue manifested itself.....*cue sigh of relief*..

[Simon Barden]

It way be worth doing a full Windows re-install. Looks like the BSOD event has really messed things up and a full re-install may be the only way to fix it.

[DrNomis_44]

It way be worth doing a full Windows re-install. Looks like the BSOD event has really messed things up and a full re-install may be the only way to fix it.

Already done several clean installs since the bluescreen.

[Simon Barden]

Have you checked that the power management scheme hasn't changed because of an update? For recording and good playback, you don't want the laptop to have the processor or peripherals slow down at all.

[DrNomis_44]

Have you checked that the power management scheme hasn't changed because of an update? For recording and good playback, you don't want the laptop to have the processor or peripherals slow down at all.

Yep, did that too, I've set the power management for all the usb bus controllers to always on, I've also set the power/sleep settings to high performance as well, I checked the CPU performance in Task Manager and the CPU is running at about 3.7Ghz, it's an Intel i5-8265U Quad Core that normally runs at 1.6Ghz but turbo boosts to up to 3.9Ghz, also, each physical CPU core can process two threads simultaneously, that effectively makes it an 8-Core CPU, so no shortage of CPU processing power.

I'm convinced that my 2i2 isn't what's causing the audio quality issue, I'm also convinced that it's not the usb cable, since I've tried three different ones and got the same result, and the only conclusion I can come to is that there's some kind of hardware issue with my laptop that's causing the audio issue, but I'm at a loss as to what the hardware issue is since my laptop appears to be otherwise operating normally as it is supposed to, there are no malfunctioning device indications in Device Manager as far as I can tell.


I'm at a loss as to what's causing the sound issue with my Scarlett 2i2, I haven't heard back from Focusrite tech support, and I think I've done as much as I humanly could to try and troubleshoot the issue.

[dave.king1]

Roughly when did it go fritz, something in the config has changed maybe a paramater returned to default or changed to something weird.

If you don't have the updates scheduled think about when Win does it's monthly updates or when you installed a new piece of hardware/software, there will almost certainly be something that coincides with the failure.

Example of blaming the wrong thing.

A mates race car wouldn't crank over and he told me he was going to buy a new starter motor, not cheap and very hard to access.

I told him not to spend a cent until I had a look.
1. connected the battery direct to the starter, spun up so no problems there.
2. worked back through the wiring and found the the lug on one of the cables on the battery isolator switch ( big red key ) had been crimped and soldered, it had been crimped over the insulation and the solder had broken due to vibration.
3. stripped and recrimped the cable and all was good again, did both ends of both cables just to be sure.

End result was problem fixed in about and hour and didn't spend a cent.

The moral is that sometimes we get blinded by our own knowledge and blame the wrong thing for the problem without looking at all the possibilities.

My race car was hunting and stalling at idle, the common wisdom I got from many a mechanic was that I needed a new airflow sensor.

Problem turned out to be a couple of pinholes in the extractors allowing pulses of air in which made the O2 sensor in the exhaust think the car was leaning out, thus the hunting looking for fuel.

A couple of dabs with the Mig welder and it was sorted.

Don't over think it

[DrNomis_44]

Roughly when did it go fritz, something in the config has changed maybe a paramater returned to default or changed to something weird.

If you don't have the updates scheduled think about when Win does it's monthly updates or when you installed a new piece of hardware/software, there will almost certainly be something that coincides with the failure.

Example of blaming the wrong thing.

A mates race car wouldn't crank over and he told me he was going to buy a new starter motor, not cheap and very hard to access.

I told him not to spend a cent until I had a look.
1. connected the battery direct to the starter, spun up so no problems there.
2. worked back through the wiring and found the the lug on one of the cables on the battery isolator switch ( big red key ) had been crimped and soldered, it had been crimped over the insulation and the solder had broken due to vibration.
3. stripped and recrimped the cable and all was good again, did both ends of both cables just to be sure.

End result was problem fixed in about and hour and didn't spend a cent.

The moral is that sometimes we get blinded by our own knowledge and blame the wrong thing for the problem without looking at all the possibilities.

My race car was hunting and stalling at idle, the common wisdom I got from many a mechanic was that I needed a new airflow sensor.

Problem turned out to be a couple of pinholes in the extractors allowing pulses of air in which made the O2 sensor in the exhaust think the car was leaning out, thus the hunting looking for fuel.

A couple of dabs with the Mig welder and it was sorted.

Don't over think it

Good point, I'm sure that whatever caused the audio issue with my Scarlett 2i2 is probably something so simple that it's easily overlooked, but for the life of me, I can't think what it could be, to all intents everything on my Acer laptop looks like it's working as it's supposed to, I know all the usb ports are working properly as they should, and Device Manager reports that they are all working as well as all the other devices, yet it is obvious that something is causing the audio issue with the 2i2, just can't figure out what it is.