Hey guys,
you are basically my last hope! I've recently spent alot of time and money on setting up a new system for music producing (since my old setup had some problems with buzz noises etc.) but now again i'm stuck! I've had some kind of hindrance for over 2 years now and i'm starting to lose my mind!
My Setup is the following:
HP Power Pavillion 15
i-7 Quadcore 2,8 GhZ
16 GB DDR 4 Ram
Windows 10 64 bit
NVidia GTX0150 Ti
3x USB 3.1 Ports (may be part of the issue)
With that i'm using a Steinberg UR242 as my Audio Interface; it runs on USB 2.0 as most (all?) audio interfaces do but USB should have downwards compatibility, right? I need the Interface to connect my Speakers and my Instruments to my Laptop.
My problem is that whenever im using my Laptop in combination with the Audio Interface i get random audio dropouts and/or crackles, which is driving me crazy. This does happen regardless if i'm simply listen to music on Spotify, watch Videos in Chrome or have audio running in Fruity Loops Studio (DAW). I didn't notice a pattern in how or when these dropouts occur (eg. in high performance situations, even though i'm not sure if it ever happened while playing games..). Sometimes i get none for several minutes, sometimes 3 in a span of 15 seconds.
My Journey has taken me about 30 hours of searching the internet so far and i haven't come far. Since i'm really at my wits end, i'm in the midst of moving to a new place (in combination with work and Uni) and it also seems that all of my fixes made the problem worse i'm begging you for help!
The first idea of what could be wrong was a post that suggested that the problem may be connected to USB 3.X ports – another site (idk if it was sweetwater?) also said that sometimes downwards compatibility failed. I was fairly certain that i really didn't have the same problem on my old PC (which had USB 2 and 3 ports), but i'm now also fairly certain that i used both types of ports without problems and i still got the same dropouts with a (rather cheap, but externally powered) USB-Hub, which seemed to solve the issue for most people affected. I do not have access to any other setup to test that right now, but (considering the following information) i am pretty sure that the USB-type is not the problem piece here.
Another post suggested updating the BIOS and the GraphicsDrivers and installing a programm to de-park the CPU Cores (I'm using ParkControl) – which i did and ever since i did that it seems that my PC got slower (noticably when i'm opening Youtube Videos the Video doesn't play immediately, then the sound starts and soon after that the video follows).
A few days ago Steinberg updated their Thread on the audio-dropouts with a new driver, which i downloaded but it didn't help whatsoever. But since then i focused on the Performance Side and tried to go through what they advised:
* Disable Hyper-Threading if your CPU supports it.
I can't/don't know how to access this option
* Disable advanced power-saving and dynamic performance options for your CPU. This usually needs to be done in the BIOS or UEFI of your computer and includes Enhanced Intel SpeedStep (EIST), AMD Cool 'n' Quiet, Intel Turbo Boost, and AMD Turbo CORE.
I can't/don't know how to access this option.
* Disable C-States in the BIOS/UEFI, if your computer's BIOS/UEFI gives you this option. C-States allow your CPU to sleep when idle, which may interfere with real-time applications such as audio. This option is often called "Disable CPU Idle State for Power Saving" in the BIOS/UEFI.
I can't/don't know how to access this option
* Disable core parking if applicable
Did that (with power options and external program) no avail
* Disable anything that is not essential to your work at that point: WIFI, Bluetooth, web cams and other components connected or built-in
tried that too
Most of these troubleshoots i can't try since i haven't found a way to access these options in the BIOS. I can only change minor things in the BIOS (USB Wake up, Language, etc.) and i can't access an "advanced BIOS" or the UEFI – going through the HP Support Pages didn't do much, either.
When testing with "LatencyMon" it almost instantly tells me that my system may have trouble handling audio and other tasks, regardless if the interface is connected or not so it seems that it really is a Performance Problem of my Laptop.
So my question would be if trying the above mentioned changes in CPU behaviour are worth a try and how i would be able to access these options.
I would really appreciate any help you guys can give me. In total I've spent more than 8 monthly wages and approx 300 hours into putting together my setup and i can't seem to make it work and it's almost making me cry...
If you have any further questions or need details i can provide please ask away – i appreciate any single answer/comment you guys can give me and will try to answer them all as timely as i can!!
