Are you having trouble connecting your controller to Windows? Follow the troubleshooting steps below to get up and running.
Restart your computer
This is a classic troubleshooting step, but you would be surprised at how many people bypass it! Restarting your computer fixes many driver issues and refreshes the OS. It's good to restart after any driver or software installation to make sure everything is working correctly.
Check you have the correct drivers installed
A lot of controllers need drivers to be installed before they will connect to a Windows computer.
Visit your hardware manufacturer's website for information, and if you need to install a driver, make sure you restart your computer to ensure all updates are refreshed.
Use another USB port and cable
Try connecting your controller using a different USB port and using a different USB cable. Not all USB cables are created equal, and some provide higher connection quality. You might have a faulty one.
Check the Audio Playback devices
When you connect your hardware to your Windows computer, your operating system may secure your hardware as the default soundcard for playback and recording in Windows.
If this happens, Serato software will not be able to access your hardware's sound card and, therefore, will not connect.
To learn how to change this, follow the steps in our Check the Default Audio Playback Device article.
Reinstalling USB device (Serato hardware) driver
Just to make sure your device drivers are being uninstalled and reinstalled correctly, follow this process:
- Click Start
- Search for, and then right-click on Computer
- Click Manage
- Click on Device Manager
- Expand Sound, Video & Game Controllers, by clicking the +
- Right-click on the device you're using, and click Uninstall. If prompted in the next window, tick the box that states Delete the driver software for this device then click OK
- Unplug your device and reconnect it after 10 seconds. Your computer should then attempt to reinstall the drivers, and once this has finished, the device will show up in Sound, Video & Game Controllers again.
IMPORTANT: If you chose to Delete the driver software for this device in step 6 above, you will need to reinstall the manufacturer driver too: Please make sure you have the correct driver installed from your hardware manufacturers website here
Update USB drivers
Your computers' USB drivers might be out of date. Check your computer manufacturer's website and check you have the latest drivers installed.
Conflicting audio drivers
Do you use any other audio applications? Have you got any other Audio devices connected to your computer other than your Serato DJ controller? Having other audio devices connected (especially other soundcards/interfaces) can conflict with connected Serato DJ controllers and may result in no connection.
Unplug any other audio devices, uninstall or disable any other audio drivers in the Device Manager and remember.. restart your computer!
NOTE: On some 11th Gen Intel-based CPU Windows computers, some users are unable to connect their Serato primary hardware. To find out how out more, check-out our KNOWN ISSUE: Computers with Intel 11th gen Core i-series CPU's can result in a failed audio or MIDI connection with Serato primary hardware.