More Drop-Outs - with X3d (Producer)

Greetings All,
Is anyone experiencing more drop-outs with X3d?
 
I opened an X1/X2 project and it started, now the project in X3d is doing it.
 
I get the tiny black box inside the Now Time box that says "Drop Out" and the project stops playing.
 
This same project played fine before I opened the older project.
 
I've rebooted (both soft and hard boot) numerous times, and it doesn't help.
Also tried disabling the network connection and AV (Windows Defender). Both of which were fine before...
 
Nothing unnecessary in msconfig/start-up...
 
Any suggestions?
 
Thanks,
MG

Thank you for the suggestions mettelus.
 
The ASIO buffers for the Lynx Aurora have to run maxed out at 1024 to run all the plugins, so yes, I already had it up there. (X2 had the same requirements.)
 
I really like the idea of adding "X3" to older project names - I will do that in the future, thank you!
 
The "safe mode" start up is also a good idea, and I may try that one. That one is new to me - I did not know you could do that. (I usually disable or bypass plugins, save the project, then save and re-open the project, enabling plugins one by one.)
 
Which - I had a couple of heavy hitters in the master bus, so things eased up when they were disabled, but the static
eventually came back. (This was a by-product of the drop-out. Concurrent restarts of the project exhibited bad digital static...)
 
What I cannot figure out is in watching the CPU monitor of all the cores, the first one is running hotter than the rest (typical for Windows 7 x64), but it is only at 50-60%... no indication of a CPU overload condition.
 
Again - everything was fine with the newer "All-X3" project before, and now I have issues...
 
I'll keep looking - and try your safe mode suggestion.
 
Thanks again,
MG

I had dropouts due to my wireless NIC card on my laptop.  I noted the dropouts to be rather regular - as in every few minutes.  So I tracked it down to the wireless card.  Now when I use Cakewalk I shut off the wireless card (its a slider switch on my Lenovo T61).  No more dropouts. 
 
Maybe your wireless card is causing a similar problem?
 
On another computer, I also saw dropouts because of the Asus Suite AI program that was running.  Its the program for my motherboard that helps with overclocking and system status (fan speed, CPU speed, etc).  I disabled that on startup and my dropout stopped.  Off topic, but the AI Suite was also causing Microsoft Flight Simulator to run strangely and have funky graphics.  Once I disabled the AI Suite, Flight Simulator returned to normal.  Strange..

Thank you all for your help.
 
gswitz - I'm digging the Gobbler integration too. Though, early on I dialed up the throttle, and it clashed with X3, so I dialed it back and all is well.
 
I'm still not sure what was going on in X3 to make it drop out and give me the digital static,
but the issue settled down long enough to export a client's project without artifacts.
 
I'm starting to think it's either the VST3 plugins, or the iLok (which gave me an occasional pop-up window stating something about moving it to other PC's, even though it's been here the whole time - in the same USB slot).
 
The issue has subsided for now, though I really have no idea why...
 
Cheers,
MG

gswitzI've tried adjusting the settings in Gobbler, but for me I keep having to pause it. There's a setting that keeps it from using too much CPU, but I have tons of CPU. It's my drive the bottlenecks.

This is it exactly. The "throttle" Gobbler uses is only for CPU.  The hard drive access is the one that I found creates problems for me with even the lowest setting in Gobbler and projects with 40+ tracks.  They need a throttle that includes HD access, or some way to easily pause or schedule backups for only user-defined off hours.  I plan to contact Gobbler about this.  Hopefully others will do the same to lend some weight to the request.

Well I am constantly getting drop outs now with 4 midi tracks open. This all seemed to appear after the D install as well. I don't think it happened before that. I don't get to enjoy working with my setup to often but am trying to figure things out and get the hang of it. P.S.Thank you to everyone on this forum, I appreciate all the tips and tricks.