I know it’s massively frustrating as I suffered this for a year but I think the problems in this thread have actually all been different issues that gave the same result of audio dropouts. On my last PC when I originally posted in this thread buying a pci usb card fixed it for me, but shortly after I upgraded my pc and on that it was the onboard ethernet - which I then replaced for an ethernet pci card and it’s been rock solid since.
It’s not correct - or fair to blame Steinberg for USB cable quality as it is highly unlikely to ever be that with it being pure data over such a short length. Just as it’s a waste of money to buy “high end” HDMI cables.
My onboard ethernet was Intel which I would have assumed to be decent. I replaced it with a cheap card that uses a Realtek chip.
There is a huge thread on the Intel forum with people with USB audio interfaces having issues.
https://communities.intel.com/thread/54594?start=0&tstart=0