I have both a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 and an Apollo Firewire Quad 2. Both give similar results. On the Apollo I seem to be getting audio drop outs even when playing a simple project with no plugins which I guess is a problem with the Apollo itself because the Focusrite doesn’t do that.
I don’t use the grid editor in SD3. I use the Cubase drum editor.
I don’t have an onboard GPU.
I tried going back to Normal Audio Priority. Can’t say there was much of an improvement.
I opened the problematic project today again and unfroze everything. It actually ran fine for some time. Then I opened a plugin to try and do some mixing and it started popping and crackling. Closed the project and opened it again - Now it’s crackling even with everything frozen.
I will try the BitSum and audio tuning guide suggested my KHARMA probably tomorrow and will write back. In the meantime I’m still open to more suggestions 
Giving a little bit of an update:
Tried BitSum to give Cubase more priority but it was already on High, so no changes there
Fried up a 100 GB on the SSD because someone suggested that the lack of space could be an issue, but nothing changed.
Tried everything here Fix Wdf01000.sys Failed BSOD with 7 Expert Tips but no difference
I updated my BIOS driver because somehow I’ve missed that one but no improvements.
Ran LatencyMon and still wdf01000 and dxgkrnl.exe had the highest Total Execution time.
Changed the BIOS Drive setting from ATA Mode to AHCI Mode, nothing changed.
Opened a different project last night. Pressed play and got the following BSOD :)))))
Started the PC again, opened the same project, pressed play and another BSOD followed.
I think it was because the buffer size of the Apollo was set to 32, because thats what it defaults to. Made it 2048 and no BSOD this time. Tried it with 32 this morning again but couldn’t get the BSOD
Haven’t had the time to try everything in Glitch Free - Cantabile - Software for Performing Musicians but will do these days. Not having much hope at this point though
Not sure what to do anymore. It feel like everything is getting worse rather than better…
so you did the “DISM Restore health” and “sfc /scannow”? Did both of those return no errors found?
Kind of a very late reply but decided to write it anyway
Tried the “Glitch Free - Cantabile - Software for Performing Musicians” but can’t say it did a lot. Maybe for someone else it could help though
Ended up upgrading the PC with an i9-10850 and 64 GB of RAM.
No more problems present. Projects work lightning fast. Even the problematic project runs smoothly without any tracks being frozen(not that I need that project anymore but at least it’s good to know :D)
I guess it was down to hardware after all.
Thank you all for the replies and for the help!
Closing the topic
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Glad you found a solution, even if it was a bit costly. Still, a system upgrade is good in the long run.
