Spdif converter (v link 192) causing crackles and pops! Help!

[taff]

This is starting to drive me a bit mad.. running my windows laptop (old ish HP 1Gb ram) > V link 192 > balanced input on my Matrix mini I dac

I get occasional cracks and pops coming through (regardless of foobar or spotify or internet radio). roughly the same interval and more often than not when the PC processor spikes from the average 14% to about 30% for no apparent reason every 12 seconds or so.

I thought it was a system resources problem but have just freed up half of the HDD (41 gb from 75 now free) and it's still there.

If I unplug the USB from the V link and put it into the dac USB in then I get none of the problems.. but worse sound! No such problems if I use the V link from my desktop. Have tried different cables/ usb ports and reinstalling drivers. Changing the latency seems to help a little.

Thinking the answer is either rebuild the laptop or wondering if the laptop USB power isn't quite enough for the V link. Getting a dedicated music server/ pc soon but in the interim this is starting to drive me potty! Anyone had a similar problem and could share their solution?!

thanks! James.

 

[hermit]

Taff read this thread on AOS concerning pops and crackles on a v-link - some of these solutions may work for you.

 

[roob]

You are probably using all you RAM up, freeing up space on your HD is not going to reduce your system resource usage you will have to turn off any unnecessary processes and programs that run in the background or install more memory.

1Gb of ram is way to little.

 

[taff]

Taff read this thread on AOS concerning pops and crackles on a v-link - some of these solutions may work for you.

Thanks! Interestingly his laptop was an HP and he solved it by using an original PSU rather than a cheap replacement.. which is exactly what mine is running on now!