Windows 10: Audio crackling and acting weird but only when gaming.

After a good few months of not running any games on my laptop, I decided to run Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and noticed the audio was severely crackling. In addition to this, the game's audio was acting strange where character's dialogue would be really quiet if I was directly facing them, and would erratically pan left and right as I moved. I loaded up Mass Effect 3 and the exact same issues occurred.


I've run games in the past with the exact same specs and have never had this issue. I can also play music and do any other activity on my PC without issue, except gaming.


It's worth noting that I run my audio through a Focusrite Scarlet 2i4 audio interface (both using headphones and speakers). I have an Nvidia GTX 1070. I tried uninstalling the Nvidia audio drivers but this didn't help. All my audio and video drivers are up to date.

:)

 

Audio Crackling

Recently, I've noticed that the audio with my speakers and headphones is "crackling". It doesn't seem to matter what the volume is set at, nor what program I'm running. If I'm playing a game, the audio crackles. If I'm listening to music, the audio crackles.
I've tried downloading/updating my audio drivers, but nothing seems to help.

 

Crackling audio. Skyrim + other games

USB headphones have never been kind to me. They always hiss, pop and crackle. The fact that you can hear it when no audio is being played suggests it's a power /connection issue.

Do you have any 3.5mm or RCA based headphones you can try?

 

Crackling audio. Skyrim + other games

No idea what either of those are.