"Tobiah" wrote in message
...
I'm using Windows 7 on a Quad core Phenom IIX4 910.
It's not the cutting edge system anymore, but it has
8Gig ram, and the install is on an SSD - It's no slouch.
So I was getting wonderful audio performance for a long
time, but something new is happening. About every 30
seconds or so, I get a few seconds of dropouts when playing
even simple piano pieces through a VSTi (Kontakt with Reaper host).
It's like clockwork, although I have not measured the periodicity
other than to take note of it while playing. Everything is really
tight like usual, then burp, spit, stutter really badly for about
5 seconds, then it goes away. It has nothing to do with the
number of voices I'm activating at a given time.
I checked the performance monitoring utilities that windows
has, and I see no spike in network, disk or cpu activity during
this recurring, periodic, faithful spaz that goes on. I
tried turning off my firewall (Avast) and Steam, etc, things
that are lurking in the backround, but I saw no change. Something
is different, and I'm afraid it's a Trojan of some kind, but
I don't pirate things, or install questionable software, so I'm
short of explanations other than maybe the NSA 
.
Anyway, I know it's a long shot. I just thought the
experience might ring a bell with someone. I'm pretty much
looking at a re-install if I can't find the culprit. Before
this happened, I was getting 100-200 voices out of Kontact at
2.9ms latency (Well, that's what Reaper says).
I've found this kind of hiccup is frequently related to a hardware issue,
something firing off interupts on a buss. It could be an audio or video
card, or a built-in network adapter, etc. For instance, just checking a disc
left in the optical drive can cause a dropout.
Troubleshooting this kind of problem can be slow and painful, but I'd start
by seeing if it occurs without using Kontakt - like playing a mix with a lot
of tracks in Reaper. It may be that the cause is always there but you can't
see it until you do something that requires a lot of I/O.
Sean