silent moments every few seconds in the recording [SOLVED]

New Dell laptop, Windows 11, latest version of Audacity just downloaded. Silent gaps in recording, both using external soundcard and external mic. Any ideas please?

[u]Dropouts[/u] are usually caused when something interrupts Audacity and hogs the system for too long. Multitasking operating systems are ALWAYS multitasking even when you’re running only one application, and there are buffers so the audio can flow smoothly in-and-out. But if something hogs your system for a few milliseconds too long you get buffer overflow and a dropout or glitch. (With playback you can get buffer underflow.) …Whatever it is, it doesn’t have to be using a lot of total CPU time, it just has to hog the system for a bit too long.

[u]The FAQ[/u] has a few troubleshooting suggestions.

Just found something that works. I was failing to get good recordings using an external sound card and mic, in Audacity, Wave Pad, and also on the internal Windows Sound Recorder. But this fixed it.

Windows 11 has “audio enhancements”. This seems to mute the music recording (during the recording) if the volume or texture of the recording doesn’t vary. Turn it off: system>sound>all input devices, then select your input device and turn “audio enhancements” to off. Got good recordings after this.