A client’s first-generation Apollo Twin USB showed up in UA Console on his Windows 11 Lenovo laptop but never as a Windows sound device, and after several sessions I couldn’t find out why.
He came to me after about three weeks of going back and forth with Universal Audio’s support. His Apollo is one of the first-generation Twin USB models, not a Twin X. It had last worked when the laptop was on Windows 10. Now the Apollo powered up and Console could see it, and you could even make the unit flash from Console’s settings, but Windows wouldn’t list it as an audio device, so he couldn’t use it to record. He wanted to know if it could be made to work.
Starting with the cable
In our first session the big clue was an error message saying the Apollo wasn’t connected with a SuperSpeed cable. He was using a USB 3.0 B to A cable through an unbranded USB-A to USB-C adapter, so I thought the cable was the most likely cause, and we chose a USB 3.2 SuperSpeed cable on Amazon together. I wrote that up as the first session, when a SuperSpeed cable looked like the answer. Unfortunately the new cable didn’t work, so we reconnected to see what was happening.
The results were quite interesting. With his blue-tipped USB 3.0 B to A cable and the unbranded adapter, the Apollo appeared in Console and its DSP showed as active in Device Manager, but there was still no Windows audio device. With the SuperSpeed cable from Amazon, Windows saw a connection and installed the WDM Thunderbolt audio device driver, but the Apollo still didn’t appear in the list of sound devices. When we tried a different adapter, one rated for higher speed, it didn’t work at all.
His laptop was very sensitive to which cable and adapter we used, and the one that got furthest was the unbranded adapter.
Everything else we tried
The second session was a long one, and none of these steps got the Apollo recognised as a Windows audio device:
- Updated UA’s Console software, then uninstalled and reinstalled it.
- Uninstalled the Apollo in Device Manager and reconnected it, so Windows reinstalled the drivers.
- Installed older versions 9 and 10 of the UA software, using the direct installers rather than UA Connect so I knew exactly which installer was running.
- Checked the laptop’s USB chipset drivers. Lenovo’s automatic update tool said everything was up to date. I’d have liked to download and install the chipset software myself to be certain, but we had to trust the tool.
- In the BIOS, disabled Thunderbolt PCI tunnelling, the only setting that looked relevant.
- Disabled Thunderbolt in Device Manager, then switched it back on.
- Tried a USB hub, different USB ports, and every combination of cables and adapters we had.
The Thunderbolt tests came from one of my guesses, which was that the port might be treating the Apollo as a Thunderbolt device rather than a USB audio device. Neither made any difference.
I also did a lot of research. Windows 11 24H2 has some reported issues with high-end USB audio interfaces, possibly linked to Thunderbolt, which I took as a red flag. I found other users on forums with Lenovo laptops and Apollo Twins having similar problems. A few had some success, but mostly they’d been through the same standard steps I was going through. On UA’s own troubleshooting page for Thunderbolt and USB connections, the example system information is from a Lenovo with a model number very close to my client’s, so I think it’s a problem UA’s support team is aware of.
By the end of the session we were no further on. My best guess was an issue with UA’s drivers, the 24H2 update, or chipset compatibility on his ThinkPad, but I couldn’t tell which. I suggested trying one more set of SuperSpeed cables to rule the cable out completely, since some interfaces can be notoriously fussy about cables, or going back to Windows 10, which is when his system was last working. I marked the case as unsolved and wrote him a document of everything we’d tried so he could decide.
UA’s suggestions, and a last session
He’d kept the ticket open with UA support, and their reply included two ideas I hadn’t thought of, running Microsoft’s System File Checker and the .NET Framework Repair tool. They also suggested freeing up space on his drive. He had 44GB free, which might be low for the future but I didn’t think it had anything to do with this problem. So we booked a final session in January and went through UA’s instructions in full:
- Ran System File Checker and the .NET Framework Repair tool.
- Uninstalled the UA software, removed any leftover UA entries with Microsoft’s install and uninstall troubleshooter, and deleted UA’s preference files from the AppData Roaming folder.
- Restarted, downloaded the latest UA software, extracted it and ran the installer as administrator, then restarted again.
When we plugged the Apollo back in, we got the same message we’d started with, saying it needed a SuperSpeed cable. He’d sent the Amazon cables back when they didn’t work, so we couldn’t test that again. I can now report that the System File Checker and the .NET repair made no difference. My understanding from UA’s email was that they weren’t planning to look any further into why these Lenovo laptops are incompatible, which leaves users like my client without support.
Where it ended
By then he’d bought a Focusrite Scarlett Solo, which worked with Pro Tools as soon as its drivers were installed. He asked me why the Apollo costs around £800 and the Scarlett less than £200. I said the main difference you’ll hear in the music is the preamps. In my experience the Apollo’s preamps are better and you can hear it, but the Scarlett will record well and is better than a laptop microphone. Good is not the same as great. The Apollo also lets you add effects while you record, like reverb in your monitoring, which you can also do in Pro Tools, or compression on the way in, which I wouldn’t recommend to a beginner because it’s easy to spoil a recording.
So after more than six hours of sessions between December and January, the Apollo still doesn’t work on his laptop. He could try one more cable, but I don’t hold much hope, and he’s carrying on with the Scarlett. On sound quality the Apollo wins, but on stress the Scarlett is clearly the champion. Sometimes my job is to be the bearer of bad news.
On a Mac? If your Apollo shows in System Report but UA’s software says there’s no device, macOS probably hasn’t been allowed to load the driver: Apollo Twin not showing up on a Mac.
If you’ve got a first-generation Apollo Twin USB working on a Windows 11 Lenovo laptop, I’d like to hear how you did it. You can email me at paul@audiosupport.co.uk.
Seeing the same thing, or got one working? Email me or ask a question.
