Small Audio Glitches with USB Everything

dirtychinchilla · 3 Aug 2021 at 09:04

Morning guys,

Hoping you can give me some advice. I run almost all of my external USB devices via my monitor, which connects to either my PC or my laptop via a USB 3.0 connection, depending on whether I'm working or not. That connection runs through a switch so I can switch everything over with one button between PC and laptop, aside from the monitor which is either Displayport or HDMI.

If I remember right, I'm running my DAC, webcam, keyboard/mouse receiver, and microphone through it. I'm experiencing very small glitches in audio though, which I initially put down to my laptop being crap, but I noticed it while gaming on my PC yesterday.

I would just get a USB hub, but I'm trying to limit the number of connections I have to move over. What's my bottleneck likely to be? My guess is that I'm pushing too much data through the one USB connection.

Any ideas for solutions?

Thanks in advance,
dirtychinchilla

adrichardson81 · 3 Aug 2021 at 16:44

It's a lot for a single connection to handle...

I'd always connect the DAC directly without a hub. The rest can run from a hub, though I'm not sure what the latency would be like for games.

dirtychinchilla · 3 Aug 2021 at 17:53

adrichardson81 said:
It's a lot for a single connection to handle...

I'd always connect the DAC directly without a hub. The rest can run from a hub, though I'm not sure what the latency would be like for games.

I was thinking about that. It’s just another cable I have to fiddle around unplugging though, which I’m trying to avoid.

adrichardson81 · 3 Aug 2021 at 21:55

What about a laptop dock? I thought about it when I started working from home, but I didn't like the idea of having it out all the time.

dirtychinchilla · 4 Aug 2021 at 09:02

adrichardson81 said:
What about a laptop dock? I thought about it when I started working from home, but I didn't like the idea of having it out all the time.

That could work, but then with my setup I think the cable would still be going via the KVM switch, leading back to the same problem. Maybe there are laptop switches?

Maybe USB-C would work. Seems it has double the bandwidth of USB-B?

Just need to work out how I'd swap it over.

LuckyBenski · 4 Aug 2021 at 20:23

dirtychinchilla said:
That could work, but then with my setup I think the cable would still be going via the KVM switch, leading back to the same problem. Maybe there are laptop switches?

Maybe USB-C would work. Seems it has double the bandwidth of USB-B?

Just need to work out how I'd swap it over.

USB C is just a plug shape, as is USB A, B, micro B, etc etc.

USB C was released after USB 3 and can carry other perks like DisplayPort, Power Delivery etc. But none of these are guaranteed so make sure all your kit is compatible before buying a dock!

I'm a big fan of a single plug dock, so if everything you have can work over the same connection that's a perk.

dirtychinchilla · 4 Aug 2021 at 20:25

LuckyBenski said:
USB C is just a plug shape, as is USB A, B, micro B, etc etc.

USB C was released after USB 3 and can carry other perks like DisplayPort, Power Delivery etc. But none of these are guaranteed so make sure all your kit is compatible before buying a dock!

I'm a big fan of a single plug dock, so if everything you have can work over the same connection that's a perk.

As am I. I like a perfectly engineered solution for minimum cost, so I’m not going to be happy until I’ve sorted this out. I’ve managed to get a usb c dock from working so I’m hoping that might help. It’ll have the benefit of an additional USB on it so I can eliminate one of the things that’s annoying me.