u/nichbern

I’m getting constant annoying pops/clicks through USB audio interfaces on my Lenovo Legion laptop.

It happened with my old Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Gen 2, so I bought a MOTU M2 thinking the interface was the issue. Unfortunately, the MOTU is doing it too, so I’m thinking it’s a laptop/driver/DPC problem.

The issue:

- Pops/clicks every few seconds in Ableton, Apple Music, YouTube, and local audio

- Happens through headphones and studio monitors

- Happens while recording DI guitar in Ableton

- Pops are printed into the recording

- Direct monitoring from the interface is clean

- Focusrite would eventually turn into robotic/static sludge

- MOTU is better, but still pops

- MOTU low latency mode makes it way worse

Laptop:

- Lenovo Legion

- Windows 11

- NVIDIA GPU

- 32 GB RAM

- Ableton Live

- MOTU M2 / Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Gen 2

Things I’ve tried:

- Different USB cables and ports

- Reinstalling drivers

- 44.1k and 48k

- Buffers from 256 to 1024

- Disabling USB power management

- Disabling NVIDIA overlay

- NVIDIA power management set to proffered maximum performance

- Headphones only / monitors disconnected

LatencyMon seems to point toward NVIDIA/DPC stuff, but I’d really like to avoid switching fully to Studio drivers if possible because I also game a fuck load on this laptop.

Anyone dealt with this on a Legion or gaming laptop? I’m trying to record mic’ed amp demos in Ableton, and the pops being imprinted into the tracks makes it unusable.