ASIO Usage For Muted/Frozen Tracks

even when I have playback stopped, the ASIO bar doesn’t go down, why?

Freezing/muting tracks also seems to have no effect. how can I improve the performance?

What buffer size are you using? Please post DAW specs too. Muting a track will not cause CPU usage to drop, because the effects are still running in the background. Also, keep in mind that freezing tracks does not render send effects or post-fader insert effects (inserts 7 & 8). Reverbs, which are typically used as sends, are notoriously CPU heavy.

DAW = Cubase 5.1.1 ?

Is there I can do about the reverbs without turning up efficiency? I am indeed using a separate reverb for just about everything.