1 (edited by VitaX 2024-01-24 02:40:11)

Topic: ADI-2 DAC FS Not Recognized by Windows 11 (Periodically)

Hello all,

I purchased an ADI-2 DAC FS early last year. At the time of the purchase, I was using a custom-built desktop and Windows 10. It's important to note that I had no issues with the DAC while on the desktop. Late last year, however, my desktop experienced a run of problems (motherboard-related) and had to be retired. I then ended up purchasing a Legion Pro 5i Gen 8 (Intel) laptop through Lenovo. Ever since I commissioned the laptop last September, I've noticed that Windows 11 will periodically 'lose' the DAC as an output device (see pictures below). Please note, that I've connected the DAC and laptop via a USB B-to-USB A cable.

As an example, last night I let the laptop go into sleep mode (after 1 hour of no use) as I went to bed. This afternoon when I returned home I found that the output device was once again lost and the sound muted as no other audio devices are enabled on this laptop (I ended up disabling them months ago to ensure they wouldn't be defaulted to when this problem occurred). I went to reboot the computer to see if that would resolve the issue. It did not. This proves to be the case each time. The only means to resolve this issue is to power down and restart the DAC. It's then immediately found as an output device and all is well.

One thing I would like to note is that this is more random than what the above makes it out to be. I don't have this issue every day. That is odd to me as I would expect to see it each morning/afternoon after the laptop has been asleep/idle for some time. I also find it curious that a computer reboot doesn't resolve the issue either. One thing I ended up trying here recently is updating the firmware to the most current revision (release date of 1/17/2024). There was no change in how it behaved.

With the above said, has anyone had this happen before on a laptop or Windows 11? Any help is much appreciated.

Pictures of the DAC not being recognized by Windows 11:
https://imgur.com/a/KZHDEf1

Pictures of the DAC being recognized by Windows 11 (after a DAC reboot):
https://imgur.com/a/uWcybEa

2 (edited by sino21 2024-01-24 06:04:52)

Re: ADI-2 DAC FS Not Recognized by Windows 11 (Periodically)

Try disabling USB Power saving and it probably will stop doing that.

https://www.eposaudio.com/en/hr/enterpr … in-windows

Anyway since the dawn of my adventure with computers (more than 20 years ago) and across many many configurations, I always had trouble losing some of the devices WHEN the computer goes into sleep and when I try to wake it up. As soon as it is on, something was or is disabled or turned off randomly. I tried to get to the bottom of it but never solved it. Simple reboot and everything is there (but sleep function sounds enticing). Nowadays I use hibernation or I set it up so that the screen goes off after XY minutes and sleep is exchanged with hibernation.

But anyway I think your problem is related to power savings on USB ports and power schemes. Note that some laptops enforce their schemes or do some tricks. Try to see vendor forums on that.

The best experience I ever had was setting my computer to a "High performance" power scheme and no throttling or power saving.

Good luck with everything.

Re: ADI-2 DAC FS Not Recognized by Windows 11 (Periodically)

Thanks for the help sino21. I ended up disabling the USB selective suspend setting in the advanced power settings of Power Options. Haven't had any issues over the last few days now, so it would appear the issue is resolved.

https://imgur.com/a/eHZ5YaH

Re: ADI-2 DAC FS Not Recognized by Windows 11 (Periodically)

VitaX wrote:

Thanks for the help sino21. I ended up disabling the USB selective suspend setting in the advanced power settings of Power Options. Haven't had any issues over the last few days now, so it would appear the issue is resolved.

https://imgur.com/a/eHZ5YaH

Nice. Glad it worked. Enjoy your music.

5 (edited by VitaX 2024-02-03 06:04:22)

Re: ADI-2 DAC FS Not Recognized by Windows 11 (Periodically)

So the issue returned a few days ago. I then opened up device manager and deselected 'Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power' for all of the devices shown under Universal Serial Bus controllers in addition to what was done above in this thread. This, also, has not corrected the problem. Looks like I'm back to square one as the issue persists.

Any other ideas here? Do you all turn off sleep mode altogether on your laptops/PCs? Just trying to figure out what the root cause is.

https://imgur.com/a/4Oo6JTq

Re: ADI-2 DAC FS Not Recognized by Windows 11 (Periodically)

Unfortunately, you are out of luck. What I can tell you is that it is not the ADI-2 unit itself. It is your hardware. During my adventure in this, I have found that sometimes laptops are changing your power schemes despite the fact that you choose or selected something else (yes you read that correctly).

And it happens only with laptops. I mean power schemes shenanigans. With desktops what you set up stays that. The reason for that is that many vendors are making some under-the-hood power optimizations to their hardware (laptops) in order to squeeze most battery life blabla. So they are stepping CPU and USB and whatnot.

So for example, if you download Universal x86 Tuning Utility they have an option that says "reapply settings every 3 seconds" which was created solely to deal with the fact that power settings are being changed all the time in the background without user approval.

Google "My power scheme keep changing" and you will see a lot of people are suffering from that issue and almost exclusively they are Laptop users or some brand desktop computer. Custom builds rarely have such issues.

This alone made me switch back to desktop (for audio duties) and never look again at laptops for audio. Your mileage may vary, as I said it is vendor-related.

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comme … self_from/

https://www.partitionwizard.com/partiti … nging.html

7 (edited by ramses 2024-02-09 13:53:12)

Re: ADI-2 DAC FS Not Recognized by Windows 11 (Periodically)

sino21 wrote:

This alone made me switch back to desktop (for audio duties) and never look again at laptops for audio.

Somebody working professional in productions reported years ago on another forum that Apple laptops died of heat death one after the other during productions in which they were operated at maximum performance for many hours.
Although they supposedly have additional heat dissipation through the housing as far as I know.
This is probably where the ever thinner laptop designs take their revenge...

That's why there are temperature sensors in the CPU, among other things, to prevent the worst from happening.
An energy profile is surely a nice thing to ensure performance, if the surrounding conditions are well.
But if there is the risk of overheating it is better to throttle than to keep the performance for some time, but then entirely kill the hardware.

But even with a desktop system, you have to be careful that nothing heats up.
The volume of the case, the airflow and the cooling need to be sufficient.
Also note that high performing CPUs run very hot nowadays.

My Xeon CPU stays at around 31-32 °C with energy profile balanced with case blowers running at minimum (5V), ultra-silent.
As soon as I start applications like DAW or games, then Process Lasso Pro switches automatically to Ultimate Performance.
Under high DAW load the CPU temperature of the Xeon E5-1680v4 stays below 40 °C rare over 40° C.
When running stress tests like prime (from CPU-Z), still below 60 °C (54-59).
Well, that was before the arms race between AMD and Intel wink

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13