Cubase 12 glitching on Huawei Matebook X-Pro, need help understanding LatencyMon results

Chanovski · November 16, 2023, 7:36pm

Hi everyone.
I really would like some help with understanding the results of a LatencyMon test.
I was having playback issues with an arrangement, getting frustrated as, although it’s not a super high spec machine, I thought my laptop should be able to handle what I was asking of it.
After a lot of forum searching, advice reading, bloatware deleting, power management reconfiguring and latest driver checking I found my way to LatencyMon.
The test results were not pretty, telling me that my system was having trouble handling real-time audio. This I already knew, but there was hope as a few problem areas were identified for me to address.
I have to be honest, I really had no idea how to fix, or even look into sorting out the problems. I typed the culprit drivers into google and checked various forums looking for solutions. Commands were commanded to the command prompt, bios was entered but looked to be pretty restricted in its scope of customisation (Huawei’s got it on lockdown?), I’ve tweaked and changed and de-activated and re-activated to no avail. I think I may have gotten myself into a bit of a pickle ‘optimising’ my laptop for Audio.
If anyone can help me through troubleshooting this problem I would really appreciate it.
Laptop specs are:
Huawei Matebook x-Pro 2020
Processor - Intel i7 10th gen - 10510U CPU @ 1.80GHz 2.30 GHz
RAM - 16 GB LPDDR3 2133 MHz
GPU - NVIDIA® GeForce® MX250 (currently disabled as there is no ‘Studio Mode’ driver thingy for this model)
Storage - 1 TB NVMe PCIe SSD
Operating system - Windows 11

I’m running the laptop plugged in, so not on the battery.

My audio interface is the Steinberg UR44C running into the USB 3.0 port

Below are are the results from LatencyMon:


CONCLUSION
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. At least one detected problem appears to be network related. In case you are using a WLAN adapter, try disabling it to get better results. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates. 
LatencyMon has been analyzing your system for  18:19:14  (h:mm:ss) on all processors.


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SYSTEM INFORMATION
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Computer name:                                        LAPTOP
OS version:                                           Windows 11, 10.0, version 2009, build: 22631 (x64)
Hardware:                                             MACHC-WAX9, HUAWEI
BIOS:                                                 1.26
CPU:                                                  GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10510U CPU @ 1.80GHz
Logical processors:                                   8
Processor groups:                                     1
Processor group size:                                 8
RAM:                                                  16219 MB total


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU SPEED
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Reported CPU speed (WMI):                             1803 MHz
Reported CPU speed (registry):                        2304 MHz

Note: reported execution times may be calculated based on a fixed reported CPU speed. Disable variable speed settings like Intel Speed Step and AMD Cool N Quiet in the BIOS setup for more accurate results.


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MEASURED INTERRUPT TO USER PROCESS LATENCIES
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The interrupt to process latency reflects the measured interval that a usermode process needed to respond to a hardware request from the moment the interrupt service routine started execution. This includes the scheduling and execution of a DPC routine, the signaling of an event and the waking up of a usermode thread from an idle wait state in response to that event.

Highest measured interrupt to process latency (µs):   136417.20
Average measured interrupt to process latency (µs):   11.373590

Highest measured interrupt to DPC latency (µs):       136406.20
Average measured interrupt to DPC latency (µs):       3.589035


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
 REPORTED ISRs
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Interrupt service routines are routines installed by the OS and device drivers that execute in response to a hardware interrupt signal.

Highest ISR routine execution time (µs):              314.539063
Driver with highest ISR routine execution time:       Wdf01000.sys - Kernel Mode Driver Framework Runtime, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total ISR routine time (%):          0.001328
Driver with highest ISR total time:                   Wdf01000.sys - Kernel Mode Driver Framework Runtime, Microsoft Corporation

Total time spent in ISRs (%)                          0.001348

ISR count (execution time <250 µs):                   419392
ISR count (execution time 250-500 µs):                0
ISR count (execution time 500-1000 µs):               17
ISR count (execution time 1000-2000 µs):              0
ISR count (execution time 2000-4000 µs):              0
ISR count (execution time >=4000 µs):                 0


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
REPORTED DPCs
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
DPC routines are part of the interrupt servicing dispatch mechanism and disable the possibility for a process to utilize the CPU while it is interrupted until the DPC has finished execution.

Highest DPC routine execution time (µs):              2794.988715
Driver with highest DPC routine execution time:       ACPI.sys - ACPI Driver for NT, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total DPC routine time (%):          0.000590
Driver with highest DPC total execution time:         rspLLL64.sys - Resplendence Latency Monitoring and Auxiliary Kernel Library, Resplendence Software Projects Sp.

Total time spent in DPCs (%)                          0.002674

DPC count (execution time <250 µs):                   1401402
DPC count (execution time 250-500 µs):                0
DPC count (execution time 500-10000 µs):              833
DPC count (execution time 1000-2000 µs):              7
DPC count (execution time 2000-4000 µs):              12
DPC count (execution time >=4000 µs):                 0


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
 REPORTED HARD PAGEFAULTS
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hard pagefaults are events that get triggered by making use of virtual memory that is not resident in RAM but backed by a memory mapped file on disk. The process of resolving the hard pagefault requires reading in the memory from disk while the process is interrupted and blocked from execution.

NOTE: some processes were hit by hard pagefaults. If these were programs producing audio, they are likely to interrupt the audio stream resulting in dropouts, clicks and pops. Check the Processes tab to see which programs were hit.

Process with highest pagefault count:                 latmon.exe

Total number of hard pagefaults                       31014
Hard pagefault count of hardest hit process:          6231
Number of processes hit:                              112


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
 PER CPU DATA
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 0 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       49.646401
CPU 0 ISR highest execution time (µs):                314.539063
CPU 0 ISR total execution time (s):                   7.089926
CPU 0 ISR count:                                      418208
CPU 0 DPC highest execution time (µs):                2794.988715
CPU 0 DPC total execution time (s):                   10.204844
CPU 0 DPC count:                                      1119873
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 1 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       15.997483
CPU 1 ISR highest execution time (µs):                163.073785
CPU 1 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.018859
CPU 1 ISR count:                                      1063
CPU 1 DPC highest execution time (µs):                2695.654514
CPU 1 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.232166
CPU 1 DPC count:                                      24173
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 2 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       26.279998
CPU 2 ISR highest execution time (µs):                71.901910
CPU 2 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.002489
CPU 2 ISR count:                                      138
CPU 2 DPC highest execution time (µs):                837.394965
CPU 2 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.382475
CPU 2 DPC count:                                      37129
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 3 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       28.440635
CPU 3 ISR highest execution time (µs):                0.0
CPU 3 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.0
CPU 3 ISR count:                                      0
CPU 3 DPC highest execution time (µs):                544.742188
CPU 3 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.639580
CPU 3 DPC count:                                      45366
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 4 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       48.987164
CPU 4 ISR highest execution time (µs):                0.0
CPU 4 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.0
CPU 4 ISR count:                                      0
CPU 4 DPC highest execution time (µs):                831.948785
CPU 4 DPC total execution time (s):                   1.299138
CPU 4 DPC count:                                      75864
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 5 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       37.968801
CPU 5 ISR highest execution time (µs):                0.0
CPU 5 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.0
CPU 5 ISR count:                                      0
CPU 5 DPC highest execution time (µs):                835.009549
CPU 5 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.332288
CPU 5 DPC count:                                      28079
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 6 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       27.403749
CPU 6 ISR highest execution time (µs):                0.0
CPU 6 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.0
CPU 6 ISR count:                                      0
CPU 6 DPC highest execution time (µs):                582.935764
CPU 6 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.850614
CPU 6 DPC count:                                      57990
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 7 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       23.294644
CPU 7 ISR highest execution time (µs):                0.0
CPU 7 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.0
CPU 7 ISR count:                                      0
CPU 7 DPC highest execution time (µs):                197.176215
CPU 7 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.169809
CPU 7 DPC count:                                      13780
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Thanks in advance for any help you can give. I know that there is a lot going on under the hood when Cubase is running with windows, I’d just like them to run in a matching stride if it’s at all possible. I (naively) thought it would have been a given, but, alas, tweaking is needed.

Chanovski · November 16, 2023, 7:43pm

Here are the results from the LatencyMon ‘CPUs’ and ‘Drivers’ tabs for the same test.

Just in case it helps you to help me.

Arlicht · November 17, 2023, 6:06am

I know that you have 10th gen Intel (which is not heterogenous cpu as 12,13,14th gen) in your laptop, but I can suggest to instal ParkControl and disable Windows Core Parking (as well check if frequency scaling is disabled too and you are using High Performance windows powerplan). And recheck your LatencyMon, maybe this will help you as well, as for 12,13,14th gen Intel cpus core parking is one of the main culprits of very high dpc/isr latency.

Chanovski · November 18, 2023, 2:00pm

Thanks for the advice @Arlicht, I’ll give that a go this evening and report back.

Chanovski · November 20, 2023, 8:40pm

Thanks again @Arlicht. LatencyMon has certainly shown some improvements since disabling core parking but my audio playback is still stuttering, clicking, popping, speeding up and slowing down. Turns out the whatever LatencyMon was reporting wasn’t the whole problem.
Any other ideas of what I can check for or optimise?

Jari_Junttila · November 20, 2023, 9:06pm

Check if your USB ports have power savings on from device manager, and turn them off.

Chanovski · November 22, 2023, 8:28pm

Thanks @Jari_Junttila. I gave that a try but my laptop is still having trouble playing the project. I’m sure it helped though. I get the feeling that it might take a load of smaller tweaks to get this thing optimised so any other suggestions people have, it would be great to hear them.
I am starting to think that my processor is just not powerful enough. 1.8GHz with 8 cores, Intel i7 10th gen - 10510U CPU.
Any thoughts, Steinberg hive mind?

Jari_Junttila · November 22, 2023, 9:35pm

Have tried disabling network card/s?
I´ve disable wlan from bios(this is not laptop, so I don´t need it), and I usually disable network card before starting DAW, it makes difference in performance, even more so on my laptop.
I´ve even dragged the network icon on desktop, so it´s easy to disable with right click

Also are you using virtual memory? This can also lead to high latencies

Chanovski · November 23, 2023, 8:49pm

Thanks again for sticking with me @Jari_Junttila. I’ve disabled my network card, and disabled virtual memory, the problem persists.

It’s the heaviest project I’ve had yet. Perhaps I need a more powerful system?
The project has:
26 Audio tracks,
3 Midi tracks,
and a whopping 52 plugins running.
I have the buffer size set at 2048 samples which gives me 47.167 ms of input latency and 51.146 ms of output latency, as I’m not recording anymore parts and just trying to mix, the latency is not a problem, is that right? I was under the impression that the lower I set the buffer size the harder everything has to work to minimise latency in real time so that audio and midi inputs sound just about instantaneous coming back out of Cubase. So I would set the buffer low for recording and raise it if I get performance issues when playing back for mixing. So I thought that high latency figures really only effect performance when I’m recording. Is that right?
Playing back this project has the CPU is running between 55-65%, and the memory is running at around 46% as reported by task manager, so as far as I can see I’m using half to two-thirds of the available resources but the playback is unlistenable. It’s not just pops and clicks and dropouts, the track is playing super slow, but when I bypass a few plugins (two instances of a heavier plugin) it then speeds up, playing too fast.
Any more ideas?

vinark · November 24, 2023, 1:22pm

Also consider trying throttlestop. It helped 100% on my laptop. If your cooling is adaquate, you can even set your cpu at a fixed turbo speed. Mine could even lower the volts and thus temp. It does take some study but it is worth the effort imho. Mine runs at 4.4ghz always now.
I have the same generation cpu only a little higher a i7-10750H if I remember correctly

Chanovski · November 26, 2023, 2:45pm

Hi @vinarika, thank for pitching in. I had heard about Throttlestop. After looking into it I kind of got a little spooked about cooking my CPU. This laptop has always run quite hot, in fact when I started having Cubase performance issues I bought a laptop cooling pad to see if over heating was the issue. It feels much cooler to the touch, both top and underneath, but the problems persist, so I guess it wasn’t that.
I think I’ll have a dig into Throttlestop to see what it can do. Although I still get the feeling that something is fundamentally wrong with the way Cubase 12 and Windows 11 are handling real time audio on my system.

A few other thing for general consideration;
I’m having trouble getting the Gullfoss plugin to load, for the first time, in Cubase at all. After going through some things with their excellent customer service, they suggested trying to load Gullfoss in another DAW. I downloaded the free copy of Reaper and tried to load Gullfoss and got the following two popups as to why it’s not working:

I was wondering if theses popups were a clue as to what is slowing down Cubase processing audio. Just a thought.

Also I’ve noticed in Task Master the following processes are being suspended:

Also just mentioning it in case this has something to do with my issue.

As I’ve mentioned before it would be good to know of anyone using a Matebook x-Pro with Cubase if they are having the same problems, or if they think that the project I described above would struggle on their system. I really don’t want to spend a tonne of money on a new PC but the longer this goes on the more I’m thinking that dropping a load of cash to solve the issue is preferable to starring at forums night after night, tweaking my laptop with no results. It’s been about a month with little or no music created, I’m not confident that, as I develop a new song, adding tracks and plugins, that it won’t all come to a grinding halt just when the arrangement and mix are coming together.
Trying not to get disheartened and grateful for all of the comments and help so far, so thanks to you guys that have pitched in.

Again, any more help or advice would be welcome.

Chanovski · December 5, 2023, 9:06pm

Just a question to anyone that has contacted Steinberg for help before: I raised a ticket about this issue with them a week ago and heard nothing back as of yet, how long do they usually take to engage with a problem like this?

KT66 · December 5, 2023, 10:09pm

Since this is not a Cubase problem per se their response time is not likely to be quick.
The Latencymon results you posted earlier show that the biggest DPC offender is ACPI, which handles (among other things) power management. This is not uncommon on laptops due to the requirement for maintenance of battery life.
I assume you have your power profile set to maximum (or ultimate) performance and USB selective suspend turned off. Also disable link-state power management for your network card.
Depending on the flexibility of your BIOS settings, you may also want to try disabling C-States and turning off Intel Speed Step and Speed Shift if possible. Note that these BIOS changes will run your laptop hotter as ACPI will stop trying to manage CPU power consumption and the CPU will run flat out.

Chanovski · December 6, 2023, 12:02am

Hi @KT66, thanks for getting involved. Power profile is set to Maximum and I’ve turned off the USB selective suspend. Also link state management is disabled.
My Bios has no way, as far as I can see, of disabling the C states or turning off Intel Speed Step and Speed Shift.
This laptop has always run quite hot to the touch from day one, when I started trying to get on top of my audio issues I bought a cooling pad just in case some kind of thermal throttling was slowing real time audio processing down. It didn’t really make a difference to that but it runs much cooler to the touch nowadays.
Thanks for you advice though, it’s nice to hear that some of the things I’ve done should have, in theory, helped out. I’m closer to giving Throttle Stop a go, just don’t want to cook my processor into a (more)useless lump.

New LatencyMon test this evening shows Wdf01000.sys as a likely culprit. Check the results below.

CONCLUSION

Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One problem
may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates.
LatencyMon has been analyzing your system for 0:10:54 (h:mm:ss) on all processors.

SYSTEM INFORMATION

Computer name: LAPTOP-FNSME2ES
OS version: Windows 11, 10.0, version 2009, build: 22631 (x64)
Hardware: MACHC-WAX9, HUAWEI
BIOS: 1.26
CPU: GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core™ i7-10510U CPU @ 1.80GHz
Logical processors: 8
Processor groups: 1
Processor group size: 8
RAM: 16219 MB total

CPU SPEED

Reported CPU speed (WMI): 1803 MHz
Reported CPU speed (registry): 2304 MHz

Note: reported execution times may be calculated based on a fixed reported CPU speed. Disable variable speed settings like Intel Speed Step and AMD Cool N Quiet in the BIOS setup for
more accurate results.

MEASURED INTERRUPT TO USER PROCESS LATENCIES

The interrupt to process latency reflects the measured interval that a usermode process needed to respond to a hardware request from the moment the interrupt service routine started
execution. This includes the scheduling and execution of a DPC routine, the signaling of an event and the waking up of a usermode thread from an idle wait state in response to that
event.

Highest measured interrupt to process latency (µs): 17115.60
Average measured interrupt to process latency (µs): 12.238157

Highest measured interrupt to DPC latency (µs): 17028.70
Average measured interrupt to DPC latency (µs): 4.763647

REPORTED ISRs

Interrupt service routines are routines installed by the OS and device drivers that execute in response to a hardware interrupt signal.

Highest ISR routine execution time (µs): 246.146701
Driver with highest ISR routine execution time: Wdf01000.sys - Kernel Mode Driver Framework Runtime, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total ISR routine time (%): 0.044265
Driver with highest ISR total time: Wdf01000.sys - Kernel Mode Driver Framework Runtime, Microsoft Corporation

Total time spent in ISRs (%) 0.044567

ISR count (execution time <250 µs): 342115
ISR count (execution time 250-500 µs): 0
ISR count (execution time 500-1000 µs): 0
ISR count (execution time 1000-2000 µs): 0
ISR count (execution time 2000-4000 µs): 0
ISR count (execution time >=4000 µs): 0

REPORTED DPCs

DPC routines are part of the interrupt servicing dispatch mechanism and disable the possibility for a process to utilize the CPU while it is interrupted until the DPC has finished
execution.

Highest DPC routine execution time (µs): 545.946181
Driver with highest DPC routine execution time: dxgkrnl.sys - DirectX Graphics Kernel, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total DPC routine time (%): 0.184064
Driver with highest DPC total execution time: Wdf01000.sys - Kernel Mode Driver Framework Runtime, Microsoft Corporation

Total time spent in DPCs (%) 0.382112

DPC count (execution time <250 µs): 2717301
DPC count (execution time 250-500 µs): 0
DPC count (execution time 500-10000 µs): 301
DPC count (execution time 1000-2000 µs): 0
DPC count (execution time 2000-4000 µs): 0
DPC count (execution time >=4000 µs): 0

REPORTED HARD PAGEFAULTS

Hard pagefaults are events that get triggered by making use of virtual memory that is not resident in RAM but backed by a memory mapped file on disk. The process of resolving the hard
pagefault requires reading in the memory from disk while the process is interrupted and blocked from execution.

NOTE: some processes were hit by hard pagefaults. If these were programs producing audio, they are likely to interrupt the audio stream resulting in dropouts, clicks and pops. Check
the Processes tab to see which programs were hit.

Process with highest pagefault count: svchost.exe

Total number of hard pagefaults 41700
Hard pagefault count of hardest hit process: 27197
Number of processes hit: 77

PER CPU DATA

CPU 0 Interrupt cycle time (s): 32.500541
CPU 0 ISR highest execution time (µs): 246.146701
CPU 0 ISR total execution time (s): 2.321748
CPU 0 ISR count: 337859
CPU 0 DPC highest execution time (µs): 545.946181
CPU 0 DPC total execution time (s): 12.833725
CPU 0 DPC count: 902167

CPU 1 Interrupt cycle time (s): 7.948810
CPU 1 ISR highest execution time (µs): 68.832465
CPU 1 ISR total execution time (s): 0.011595
CPU 1 ISR count: 4256
CPU 1 DPC highest execution time (µs): 357.130208
CPU 1 DPC total execution time (s): 0.325166
CPU 1 DPC count: 21440

CPU 2 Interrupt cycle time (s): 6.707122
CPU 2 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0
CPU 2 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0
CPU 2 ISR count: 0
CPU 2 DPC highest execution time (µs): 120.900174
CPU 2 DPC total execution time (s): 0.458832
CPU 2 DPC count: 86770

CPU 3 Interrupt cycle time (s): 10.411005
CPU 3 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0
CPU 3 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0
CPU 3 ISR count: 0
CPU 3 DPC highest execution time (µs): 221.260417
CPU 3 DPC total execution time (s): 2.384960
CPU 3 DPC count: 716202

CPU 4 Interrupt cycle time (s): 12.872625
CPU 4 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0
CPU 4 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0
CPU 4 ISR count: 0
CPU 4 DPC highest execution time (µs): 146.582465
CPU 4 DPC total execution time (s): 2.081570
CPU 4 DPC count: 598350

CPU 5 Interrupt cycle time (s): 6.563206
CPU 5 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0
CPU 5 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0
CPU 5 ISR count: 0
CPU 5 DPC highest execution time (µs): 111.476563
CPU 5 DPC total execution time (s): 0.123826
CPU 5 DPC count: 25523

CPU 6 Interrupt cycle time (s): 24.770141
CPU 6 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0
CPU 6 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0
CPU 6 ISR count: 0
CPU 6 DPC highest execution time (µs): 419.423611
CPU 6 DPC total execution time (s): 1.293331
CPU 6 DPC count: 248704

CPU 7 Interrupt cycle time (s): 6.413046
CPU 7 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0
CPU 7 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0
CPU 7 ISR count: 0
CPU 7 DPC highest execution time (µs): 143.760417
CPU 7 DPC total execution time (s): 0.504559
CPU 7 DPC count: 118446

Not really sure what to do about this.

Then there’s the whole graphic glitching thing going on. I get black flashes on my screen nowadays.
Since Cubase started slowing down, speeding up and generally popping and hissing all over the shop I took to a few forums and rightly so the main suggestion was to first check that all of your drivers and bios version were up to date. In doing this I updated my Intel onboard graphics driver. since then, if I run my laptop with this driver I get black flashes whenever I opened a new app or program or just moving my cursor around the Cubase screen would make it graphically glitch and black out. This came to a head when the (new to me) plugin Gullfoss wouldn’t load at all in Cubase, as I said above.
The guys at Sound Theory (makers of Gullfoss) were awesome and so we had a good back and forth about how to solve it. At first they said for me to use my Nvidia graphics card whilst running Cubase as this would load a compatible OpenGL environment for Gullfoss but Cubase runs so laggy with that graphics card that it’s un-useable. In fact, one of the first bits of advice I read was to disable my Nvidia graphics card to help with Cubase audio issues. I had rolled back my onboard driver to a basic Microsoft graphics driver to stop the blacking out glitching, but this somehow stopped Cubase from loading Gullfoss at all, even though I had Cubase set to run only on the Nvidia GPU. And even though Cubase was set to run ONLY on this GPU, the only way we could get Gullfoss to run was to update the driver for the onboard GPU to the Intel UHD driver, the one that flashes black all the time.
So my options became:

Cubase on Nvidia, onboard with basic driver = painfully slow Cubase and no Gullfoss.
Cubase on Nvidia, onboard with Intel driver = painfully slow Cubase, black flashing glitches, Gullfoss loading.
Cubase set to run with onboard GPU and basic driver (Nvidia disabled ) = Cubase is graphically smooth, no Gullfoss.
Cubase set to run with onboard GPU and Intel driver (Nvidia disabled) = Cubase and system has black flashes, Gullfoss loading.

None of these are great but at least I could take my new plugin for a test drive.
This evening I had a chat with a guy at Intel about the black flashing issue. Again, after a bit of back and forth, we managed to stop Google Chrome from flashing and glitching by deactivating the ‘Use Hardware Acceleration When Available’ setting. I fire up Cubase and the graphical glitching was still present so I googled to see if I could deactivate Hardware Acceleration to see if it helped. As far as I can see this is only an option for the mac version.
This graphical glitching is a separate issue from the audio slowing and dropping, but I thought it was worth a mention in case someone knows of something that might connect them. More grist for the mill perhaps. The Intel help desk advisor did send me an email afterwards suggesting I get in touch with Huawei about the issue. He said:

After reviewing the details you provided, it appears that the challenges you’re facing may require advanced technical assistance from the laptop manufacturer.
To ensure that you receive the most comprehensive support for your specific laptop model and the underlying system issues, I recommend reaching out to the manufacturer’s dedicated support team (Contact Us - Huawei United Kingdom). They have the expertise and resources needed to address intricate technical concerns.
These are the possible steps:

1. BIOS recovery/update.
2. Windows Repair or clean installation.
3. Mobile motherboard and peripheral inspection (hardware)
4. Possible RMA or warranty replacement.
As much as I want to extend further help. I hope you understand that I am not certified or licensed to perform the aforementioned advanced troubleshooting.

So that might be where I go next if Throttle Stop doesn’t help/melt my house down for Christmas.
Has anyone looked at the details of the specific project I was having audio problems with? It would be nice to know if that sort of workload is something this laptop could deal with. Does anyone have a similar system and can tell me the sorts of projects they’re running without problems, or indeed the types of projects where the audio starts to misbehave.
Am I asking too much from this computer, or is there really a fixable solution here?

KT66 · December 6, 2023, 1:42am

Your DPC and ISR results are actually OK, they’re 0.5ms or less which is well within acceptable range. Your Interrupt to Process Latency is not OK, and the reason for that is harder to track down.
I could make further suggestions, but frankly it sounds like your laptop has more problems than it should at the moment. I would suggest going with a rebuild of the device first and then, assuming everything else settles down, you can get back to performance troubleshooting if required.
If you carry on like you are at the moment, you’ll never really know what’s causing what problem.
Best to start fresh, I think.