USB sound card causing CPU spikes

[Nysir]

I recently bought a HyperX Cloud II headset, which comes with a USB sound card.

The headphones work great, but the sound card causes cpu spikes whenever an audio/microphone application is running (almost all the time). Basically, the second core on my processor will jump up to anywhere between 20% and 70% usage, go back down to 0-1% for a few seconds, then spike up again. It is ONLY this core, but it is definitely negatively impacting performance in games.

I've already confirmed this is the problem by unplugging it and plugging the headset directly to my motherboard, which fixes the issue.

However, it only has one 3.5mm jack and doing this not only renders my microphone useless, but makes the cord too short. I've asked on so many other forums and have been mostly ignored. This is my last resort before I send them back for the $80 version without the USB sound card, but I would prefer not to go through the hassle.

All other potentially conflicting audio devices have since been disabled in device manager. There are no driver updates available for it. My motherboard chipset drivers are up to date for the most part, and I don't see anything that would relate to this problem anyway. I already contacted Kingston tech support and they couldn't help me at all.

Can anyone offer some help with this?




My PC specs:
MSI Z77A-G41 Motherboard
Radeon 7870
Intel Core i7-3770 3.4 GHZ
8GB DDR3 RAM Corsair
CX600 600W
PSU 500GB Western Digital HDD
Windows 7 64-bit

 

[inachu]

Make sure you have the latest USB drivers for your motherboard

 

[redzo]

There seems to be a known issue with this product: http://www.amazon.com/review/RCJ52AICYCPOA

Unfortunately, I don't think that there's much you can do. I suspect it has something to do with bad programming of that usb soundcard drivers that may never get updated. I would send them back and try my luck with another product if I were you...

 

[Nysir]

Thanks for the reply, guys. Believe it or not, out of all the tech forums I've posted this problem on, you are the only two people to bother replying.

The only USB drivers for my motherboard are for 3.0, and since the problems exists in both 2.0 and 3.0 slots and my 3.0 have worked fine thus far, I don't think that'll make a difference. The lack of information about this specific issue has made me decide to just send them back for the first generation of the same headset that doesn't use any usb sound cards.

It would have been nice to find an actual fix, but short of buying adapters I don't think there is one. And I'd much rather get the original HyperX for $20 cheaper than spend up to $20 on lengthening the cables and getting a mic adapter. Thanks for your input guys!