1) Adjust your energy plan to “High performance”:
Windows 7: Start > Control Panel > System and Security > Power Options >select “High Performance”.
Windows 8/10: Start > Type “Control panel” and click it > Hardware and Sound > Power Options > Select “High Performance”.
In both cases, while verifying this, make sure your energy plan does not suspend your USB devices automatically. Click on “Change plan settings” > then click on “Change advanced power settings” > expand “USB Settings” and “USB Selective suspend settings” > Change it from “Enabled” to “Disabled” > Click “Apply” and “OK”.
2) Make sure you have the latest Audio and Video Drivers.
Check the respective sites of your hardware manufacturers.
3) Verify the correct Audio Device is enabled on Windows:
Windows 7: Start > Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound.
Windows 8/10: Start > Type “Control panel” and click it > Hardware and Sound > Sound.
In both cases, your audio device should be enabled with a green checkmark on the “Playback” and “Recording” tabs. If you use Windows 10, you can access a similar page by clicking on Start > Settings > System > Sound. Ensure you have only one audio device running at a time.
4) Disable USB Power Management:
Windows 7: Start > Control Panel > System and Security > System > Device Manager (You can access directly after clicking on Control Panel if you have Icons view enabled).
Windows 8/10: Start > Type “Control panel” and click it > Hardware and Sound > Devices and Printers > Device Manager (You can access directly after clicking on Control Panel if you have Icons view enabled).
After opening Device Manager, expand “Universal Serial Bus Controllers” and double click on every USB item, unchecking the box that says “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” located under the Power Management tab.
5) Disable Unnecessary background programs:
Check the performance tab on the Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc). If you get more than 0% - 3% constant CPU Usage while Idle, it is a good idea to disable any background process that could affect your performance. A good place to start is disabling non-essential third-party software.
A good portion of Mainstream Laptops can contain pre-installed software that could significantly affect your system performance. In any case, you can disable unwanted start-up programs:
- Press Windows+R on your keyboard
- Type “msconfig”
- Go to the “Startup” tab and uncheck any unwanted process
- Press “Apply” and “OK”
Do not forget to disable only third-party programs that are not part of your usual workflow. Avoid disabling startup programs related to windows or your main devices.
6) Measure your system stability.
Check the latency of your system and if it’s capable of handling real-time audio streaming without drop-outs. You can use tools like DPC Latency Checker or LatencyMon . For CPU Benchmarks and temperate measurement, you can use CPU-Z and CoreTemp .
Check if you observe any irregularity while monitoring with these programs (bumps on latency, CPU usage, High temperature).
7) What else to try.
It is good practice to delete software you don’t use. Some users experience improvements in performance after disabling windows visual effects, system sounds and setting processor scheduling to background services:
- Disable Windows visual themes: Open Control Panel > Set icon view and click on “System” > select “Advanced System Settings” > Under the “Advanced options” tab, locate “Performance” and click on “Settings” > Under the “Visual Effects” tab, check “Adjust for best performance”. Click “Apply” and “OK”.
- Disable system sounds: Open Control Panel > Set icon view and select “Sound” > Under the “Sounds” tab, locate “Sound Scheme”. Select “No sounds”, Click “Apply” and “OK”.
- Set processor scheduling to background services: Open Control Panel > Set icon view and click on “System” > select “Advanced System Settings” > Under the “Advanced options” tab, locate “Performance” and click on “Settings” > Under the “Advanced” tab, set the processor to “Background services”. Click “Apply” and “OK”.