Scarlett 6i6 1st Gen, Reaper and Windows 10 Laptop?

JCA2550

The Scarlett  6i6 mostly works fine and has been perfect for my needs, but occasional it crashes the laptop or loses audio connection.
Would replacing it with the 3rd Gen equivalent be sensible? And if yes, what are the benefits and what's the best option for a daw interface?
Cheers,
C

Heartfeltdawn

Before buying a new interface, you should tell us more about the laptop. Has it been set up for audio, is it used just for audio, is it a mixed use machine? It sounds more like you should sort the laptop out first before potentially buying anything new. 

From what I can see on the Focusrite website, the 1st gen 6i6 is still supported so no issues with drivers being outdated. 

So yeah, tech specs on the laptop would be the place to start. Processor, memory, all the usual. 

JCA2550

Lenovo ThinkPad T540p
Windows 10 Pro
Processor - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4600M CPU @ 2.90GHz   2.89 GHz
16.0 GB (15.7 GB usable)
64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Optimised for Audio and DAW as per Reaper's recommendations but also used for email a the usual Chrome based searches etc..

Danny1969

Most likely is a serial bus fault, check the ports and cable are in good nick and make sure nothing else is using a USB port at the same time .... an external hard drive for example  that attempts to draw too much current from a USB port  can cause a port voltage drop on the serial bus which will lose connectivity with the audio interface and crash the software. 

Generally an under spec'ed machine will cause the transport to stop and crackles etc from buffer errors but an actual crash is normally a loss of data stream ... assuming no other rogue bit of software isn't causing a memory violation or leak 

If you're unlike the unit it's self could be faulty, if you look at my community repair thread you can see me fixing a 2i2 that had a bad switching chip which was used to mute the inputs. Maybe the 6i6 uses a similar system. 

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/192351/the-community-repair-thread#latest

Heartfeltdawn

Find someone who can service the laptop before making any new interface purchase. Pointless buying a new interface if the problem is going to keep continuing.