New Acer Aspire laptop.

[dave.king1]

What happens when you play a CD, wav or mp3 located on the PC, if they are also a problem then I'd be digging into PC sound path.

Have you tried another interface, take the laptop into the place where you were/are doing the audio course and they a couple of theirs.

Focusrite stuff has a pretty good reputation for reliability.

Still waking up and only halfway through the 1st coffee, I'll keep thinking on it

[king casey]

Scarlett 2i2 seems to work just fine with my studio desktop pc, which is running the exact same version of Windows 10, same driver, same Daw software

I'd go out and buy a brand new audio device....but I'd make damned certain not to lose the receipt.

cheers, Mark.

[DrNomis_44]

What happens when you play a CD, wav or mp3 located on the PC, if they are also a problem then I'd be digging into PC sound path.

Have you tried another interface, take the laptop into the place where you were/are doing the audio course and they a couple of theirs.

Focusrite stuff has a pretty good reputation for reliability.

Still waking up and only halfway through the 1st coffee, I'll keep thinking on it

It happens when playing back audio from any source on my laptop, be it mp3s, wavs, cds, system sounds, Daw software, apparently from what I've read from visiting a few online forums, I'm not the only Scarlett 2i2 owner that's experiencing the crackly distortion sound issue, there's also some 2i6 and 18i8 owners experiencing the same issues, I've just plugged my Scarlett 2i2 into a spare usb port after doing yet another clean install of Windows 10 on my laptop, I haven't installed any of the proper Focusrite 2i2 drivers yet, I can occasionally hear some slight crackling, I checked in Device manager and it gives the following error message for Focusrite control:




The crackly distortion audio issue seems to get worse after installing any version of the Focusrite 2i2 driver software, funny enough, when I use my Scarlett 2i2 with my desktop pc the audio is crystal clear, so, I'm wondering if there's some weird hardware compatibility issue with the 2i2 and my laptop?


Also wondering if it has something to do with Microsoft's most recent Windows 10 cumulative updates for 2020, cause the issue started after the cumulative updates were downloaded and installed, but then again, my studio pc has the same cumulative updates installed on it.


Found this forum while looking for a solution to the 2i2 audio issue I was experiencing:

https://forum.vb-audio.com/viewtopic...LX2lfDOmehz8FQ


And this one too:

https://forum.vb-audio.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=506

[DrNomis_44]

I'd go out and buy a brand new audio device....but I'd make damned certain not to lose the receipt.

cheers, Mark.

Good point, I don't think I still have the original receipt, and my Scarlett 2i2 is probably out of warranty by now anyway.


I sent an email to Focusrite technical support yesterday with some screenshots they asked me to make for them, have to wait till I get a reply back from them.


I wonder if a new usb audio interface from Avid, the makers of Protools, might work better with my laptop.....hmmmmm....

[Simon Barden]

Did the DPC latency monitor show any processes that hog the processor and don't release it when they should?

Have you disabled the wi-fi when recording/playing back? That's a well known cause of some of the crackles on ASIO drivers.

Does your laptop PSU have a ground connection or is it double insulated? Sometimes laptop systems can suffer because there is no ground connection at all, and all that it needs is some screened part to be connected to ground.

I'd also manually check for latest drivers for the main components like network cards, video etc. Windows only auto uploads the latest signed drivers, and most manufacturers don't normally certify any but the major issue releases, so bug fixes etc. don't get loaded unless you do it yourself.

Have you got any 3rd party anti-virus programs loaded?

[Simon Barden]

We know 2i2s can work properly, so you'll probably have similar issues with any other interface. You need to get the laptop working correctly. Any pre-loaded software suites hanging around? What's loading on startup?

[Simon Barden]

And you're really supposed to load the device driver before you connect the soundcard.

[dave.king1]

I'm using the Scarlett Solo v2 and have the most current updates on both laptop and PC and don't have any issues, given that it only appears on the laptop and only when the interface is plugged in I'm thinking there's an issue with the USB path in the laptop.

Try the lappy with another interface before spending on a new one.

USB 3 does cause RFI issues so best eliminate that as well, I got a new USB 3 external HD and it created all sorts of issues until I found where I could place it away from other USB connected stuff

[DrNomis_44]

Did the DPC latency monitor show any processes that hog the processor and don't release it when they should?

Have you disabled the wi-fi when recording/playing back? That's a well known cause of some of the crackles on ASIO drivers.

Does your laptop PSU have a ground connection or is it double insulated? Sometimes laptop systems can suffer because there is no ground connection at all, and all that it needs is some screened part to be connected to ground.

I'd also manually check for latest drivers for the main components like network cards, video etc. Windows only auto uploads the latest signed drivers, and most manufacturers don't normally certify any but the major issue releases, so bug fixes etc. don't get loaded unless you do it yourself.

Have you got any 3rd party anti-virus programs loaded?

Latency monitor didn't show any cpu hogging processes as far as I could tell, I even tried an app called DPC Latency Checker while running one of my Daw software (FL Studio 20), both were running at the same time and while I was getting the crackly distortion it was saying that my laptop should be able to handle real-time audio streaming, DPC Latency was constantly measured at under 2ms.

Before I was experiencing the crackly distortion issue, I was able to play back audio from a Daw crystal clear even when WiFi was active.

My laptop's power supply is double-insulated but it never caused any problems with audio playback, the crackly distortion issue only started occurring last week, and my laptop blue screened not long afterwards.

I've tried updating all of the windows drivers to the most recent ones provided by Acer.com, didn't fix the problem, I've also tried a few different versions of the 2i2 driver, that didn't fix it, the problem seems to only occur when I connect my 2i2 up to any of the usb ports in my laptop, when I connect it up to my desktop pc the problem doesn't occur.


I don't have any third-party anti virus software running on my laptop, just windows defender that comes with windows 10.

[DrNomis_44]

And you're really supposed to load the device driver before you connect the soundcard.

I tried installing/loading the driver and then connecting the 2i2, that didn't make any difference.