Audio pops Helix thunderbolt dock

[Doubledashie]

ISSUE:

When connected to helix through thunderbolt dock [omen accelerator] for a laptop (windows laptop [dell xps 9560]) I get audio clips/pops (for windows 10 audio playback). It's more pronounced as I do stuff and have processes running. If I'm just playing a youtube video and doing nothing else (no scrolling, nothing) then there are no audio pops 

 

DETAILS:

If I plug helix directly into a free port on the laptop, I do not get this problem. I have had laptops in the past where I had this problem even when plugged directly into the laptop. None of my other audio devices I route through the dock have this problem, it is specific to helix.    

 

DISCLAIMER:

So make no mistake, this is practically a non-issue, it would still be nice to consistently live the one cable dream (as in only having to make one connection with my laptop to everything else). This is a fringe topic, and I expect no one will have a good answer, but it doesn't hurt to hear from other people using a hub/dock. I mainly want to hear if anyone else is running through a dock or hub and experiencing any issues, or if you've had success anyway, do share your config 

 

EXTRA TROUBLESHOOTING INFO:

If it's useful info, bios update and thunderbolt driver update seems to have made it worse. It'd be too much of a pain to roll back, because I'd have to roll a handful of things back not supported by older bios, before rolling back bios. 

 

I've tried everything in the big "USB audio troubleshooting" thread (shown below) 

 

I once had luck removing realtek entirely (on a different laptop). Unfortunately that meant no sound with my laptop by itself.

 

the windows audio troubleshooter replaced line6 driver with windows driver pretty huge difference in regards to this problem, much fewer clicks and pops, but they still happen (down from once per 10 seconds to once every ten minutes ish. Honestly can't tell the functional difference between windows and line6 drivers. 

 

Also, maybe related, Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{c166523c-fe0c-4a94-a586-f1a80cfbbf3e}\ in regedit contains an ever-growing list of entries. A troubleshooter associated one of the entries with an old line6 driver (l6podhd2.sys). There are 50 entries, uninstalling and reinstalling drivers for the helix leads to new entries

 

[jbuhajla]

I get those pops sometimes over USB to my DAW. I have found it to be static electricity related. I think I remember others talking about this and they used some sort of signal isolation cable that won't transmit the surges from static. It wasn't necessary for me to I didn't explore it any further. 

 

Not much of a help, but just something in my memory banks...