Distorted signal/white noise

Hello, I have been having troubles with my new laptop and am just wondering if anyone has had this specific problem before.

I’ve managed to sort out some of the issues which had been happening, crackles and pops. I did some optimization going by a video guide of molten music on youtube and this seems to be resolved now. Prior to that , changing the buffer size didn’t reap any rewards.

Basically when recording with my SM57 the signal often has a lot of noise on it and sometimes is completely ruined by white noise and the waveform looks like a chunky rectangle with spikes coming off it. Also when I have recorded with nothing plugged in inputs wise recording would still sometimes be like this. At the moment recording with a guitar plugged in seems to not be affected.

Forgot to say, I use a UR22, which is why it might be relevant to this forum! I got it 3 years ago so I think it is a mk1.

Thanks