Hi Mariell,
Laptops are tricky since most are designed for simple office usage and casual browsing. They may be powerful on paper, but doesn’t have what it takes to handle real-time audio.
One thing you didn’t mention is what audio interface you are using. A good interface with a stable ASIO driver goes a long way. (RME has a reputation of making very stable ASIO drivers for their interfaces.) Also, all ASIO drivers have a “Buffer” setting. In a nutshell,
- High buffer value = Lower stress on your computer and less audio drop-outs as a result. The downside is a higher latency that you would experience if you monitor through Cubase or use virtual instruments live. (If you are not recording anything, the higher latency doesn’t really matter.)
- Low buffer value = More stress on your computer but lower latency. (Good for tracking/recording)
What buffer values and sample rate are you using in your projects?
It sounds like you have already done a lot of optimizations in Windows. The power settings are likely the most important ones. I have made my own power plan in Windows. The basic idea is to keep Windows from powering down certain components of the computer when it thinks you are not using them. This doesn’t work well in a DAW application. So make sure all the little settings in the power plan are set to full throttle with no sleeping or napping allowed!
WiFi adapters in laptops can cause issues. Turn your WiFi off when working in Cubase and see if that makes a difference. (Bluetooth may be susceptible as well on certain systems.)
There is also settings in Device Manager in Windows to allow USB hubs to be powered down. Some users have reported that turning this setting off have had a positive impact. You can find this setting here and you would have to change it in all the USB Hub entries.
Have you gone over your BIOS settings? In there you can experiment with disabling Hyperthreading which seem to help a lot of users. In BIOS you can also disable components that are not used (such as on board audio interface) and is recommended.
It might help if you could share the results from Latencymon.