Cubase 11 on new Computer has sudden lags after some minutes

Hi. I have a weird issue with my new and powerful hardware I bought just for Cubase.
When launching a template with about 5-10 VST instruments which are operated via MIDI interface, the latency for real time usage is quite ok.
But suddenly after a random while (maybe between 2 -10 minutes) there is a sudden crackling in the audio and the latency drops from about 40ms up to 2 seconds!
Midi instruments become unplayable and the only way to solve this is to restart the computer and hope it won’t happen again.
This PC has only Cubase and some VST installed and was bought exactly for this purpose. No other Software installed, also no internet connection or anti-virus.
With the old computer (4 years old) and the exact same Audio Hardware and VST, the problem did not occur.

What is going on there? Has anyone had such behaviour?

Computer specifications:
Intel Core i9-10900K (LGA 1200, 3.70GHz, 10-Core)
MSI Z490-A Pro (LGA 1200, Intel Z490, ATX)
G.Skill Trident Z RGB (4x, 16GB, DDR4-3600, DIMM 288)
Samsung 970 EVO (1000GB, M.2 2280)
ASUS BC-12D2HT DVD-ROM
be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 (650W)
be quiet! Dark Base 900 (Big Tower)
be quiet! Pure Rock (15.50cm)
Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 2004

Audio Hardware:
Alesis Multimix 16 USB 2.0 (Asio driver: ALESIS_USB2_X64_2.9.13)
M-Audio Midisport 4x4 Midi controller
Korg V3 Prox Trinity drs via Midi Controller

Cubase:
Version 11
VST:
EastWest Hollywood Orchestra
EastWest Hollywood Strings
EastWest Symphonic Orchestra
EastWest Symphonic Choirs
Steinberg The Grand 3

Sounds like you need to run a latency checker as something is causing this. Your pc should be able to run at lower buffer settings than you are doing anyway. I’m running a 9900k i9 with a rme Babyface pro fs but I was running it with a zoom L-20 before that and could run at 64 buffers and at present I can use more plugins than you mention with about 3ms latency.

Your pc should be capable of much better performance. Search for latency or dpc checker on here and you should be able to find a link to the checker which will show you what is causing the problem.

By the way are you using asio guard? This helps a lot.

Hello, thanks for the answer.
I bought the hardware with the intention to be the top of the line for VST music processing like cubase does.
I have also tried playing around with the Asio drivers buffer. lowering it helps greatly to lower general responsiveness of the VSTs, but the sudden and drastic drop after a while to over 2 seconds still happens.
I will check with the dpc checker the next time I got some spare time and will report the outcome.
I am not 100% sure if I use Asio Guard, but I will check this as well asap.

Also I am not sure if my outdated Midi and ASIO hardware might be the cause for this issue.
The Alesis Multimix 16 USB 2.0 and the M-Audio Midisport 4x4 Midi controller only have drivers for Windows 7 available because they are a bit older. The old PC where it was running smoothly, had in fact windows 7 installed. The new PC of course has Windows 10 to get the most out of the new hardware.
As a short term measure I have now bought an ESI M4UeX MIDI controller with USB 3.0 and windows 10 support as a replacement for the M-Audio to see if this element in the chain was the issue. As soon it will arrive, I will report the outcome here as well

Does it happen without any plugins in the project?

Are you sure you spec’d the power properly?

And also proper cooling?

Disable hyper-threading, see this guide for other:
Windows 10: How to set-up and optimize a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) – Steinberg Support

Hi
I have not checked if it happens without a plugin. I will check. But actually I think it only happens when some midi signals are coming in.
Power should be fine as this PC has no dedicated graphics card an nothing else than an onboard SSD.
Cooling monitoring tells me its about 30°C which I think is fine.
I will test to disable hyper threading

Perhaps not having the dedicated graphics card is the problem…

Really you think? Ok I will install one next week and test

Could be I don’t know, Cubase is fairly graphically demanding

I’m not sure how the onboard graphics will handle it and if it takes power from CPU or what.

Most users here have dedicated graphics cards I’m pretty sure

thanks for the tip. I have an old AMD Radeon HD 4550 laying around. Do you think that would be good enough?

Not sure, I don’t have experience with them

just checked, there are no win 10 drivers for this old graphics card, I will buy a new one

try to figure out how much power you’re already using, and what any new GF card will take up…

I use onboard graphics on a ASUS Rog Strix gaming E. Cubase is not graphically demanding at all. I have zero problems working like this. In fact the dpc latency was higher when I had a 1030 graphics card installed. Do the dpc latency check before you start buying other things.

Have you checked power settings? Are you using the steinberg power scheme? If not try it. Also don’t use balanced or low power mode in windows settings

Thanks for your suggestion. I have “Best perfomance” power profile active. Do you have a hint where to get the Steinberg Power Profile?

It’s in the settings just like asio guard is so you don’t get it but enable it in Cubase

Ah I see. thank. Will try this on the next Tuesday when I am present in the Audio Recording room

I calculated my power with the beQuiet psucalculator, looks like I am still having much spare power with the 650W power supply

disable any MSI hardware controller stuff, overclocking, power, etc.

ok, thanks, I have now a list of possible action which I will try on next Tuesday in the audio room. I will report then here. Many thanks for the help so far and have a nice weekend

sorry I was ill last week and could not update this thread.
So I have checked several things and its even more strange:

  • disable C-States and Hyperthreading as suggested by steinberg
    I cannot do this. The MSI board simply has NO option to disable this. I have searched the manual as well, but it looks like this board has no such option. I remember having it on the old Asus Mainboard… >MSI Z490-A-PRO

  • I have updated all possible drivers including chipset and Intel ME.
    No success…

  • Steinberg Power Profile and Asio Guard are active

  • I run LatencyMon. Interesting was, that it was all green in the beginning, but after the sudden lag the screnshot I took looks like there is an issue with some HDAudBus.sys. Updating the onboard sound card driver did not help (but I am not using the onboard one - I have the old Alesis)

  • when the sudden lag happens, the CPU of one core spikes up to 50% . Both screenshots are combined because new users can only post 1 screenshot:

  • most disappointing was the new MIDI Interface. I have exchanged the really old M-Audio 4x4 with a brand new ESI M4UeX USB 3.0. But the Interface only worked for ONE single time. After this Cubase refused to get any inputs from the device anymore and I have connected the old M-Audio again. I need to test this on my other machine if the device has an error.