...wicked
I'd pop open the Task Manager and see what's running in there. Laptops in particular, especially if it's still running with whatever it came installed with, tend to turn on gobs and gobs of things that don't need to be there. 
 

+1000. On the CES laptop, some startup program (I forget what) was using 14% of the CPU and was totally unnecessary.

Hi Susan,
 
Thanks for the response. I'm not giving up on X3, just postponing its implementation. I do have one important question. Does your Komplete Audio 6 interface work without incident in Reaper?
 
Thanks.
 

Earwax
Does your Komplete Audio 6 interface work without incident in Reaper?

Yes.
 
-Susan
 

Hi All-
 
Thanks for all the comments and suggestions.
 
When I first started using this laptop a couple years ago, there was a whole bunch of stuff I didn't want or need in Windows 7, but it came with a free upgrade to Windows 8 so I installed that. I need to keep Windows 7 for some things, so I set it up as a dual boot Win7/Win 8.1.
 
I didn't install any of the apps, utilities and other garbage that came with the laptop along with Win8. Since I wanted to use it primarily for audio, I kept it very lean and installed only what was necessary. The only thing enabled in Startup is Classic Start Menu (which I'll try disabling).
 
I went through Sweetwater's PC Optimization Guide and did all that was recommended. I'll check everything again to make sure nothing's changed.
 
I don't have wi-fi enabled on the laptop. I connect to the Internet via Ethernet. I left that connection enabled because the default for Help was online and I wanted access to the forum, but I switched that to "Always offline" last night and I'll see if it makes a difference if I disconnect from the Internet altogether.
 
LatencyMon reports "Your system appears to be suitable for handling real-time audio and other tasks without dropouts."
 
Thanks again-
 
-Susan

When I read these kinds of threads, I almost feel guilty for being able to for days and days on end without problems...almost .
 
Just for kicks I googled "Komplete Audio 6 problems" and there were a bunch of things, of which few (if any) seemed to be an actual problem with interface hardware itself. My favorite was a USB keyboard controller that when plugged in, caused all kinds of problems. Apparently it drew just a bit more than it should have from the USB bus.

Anderton
When I read these kinds of threads, I almost feel guilty for being able to for days and days on end without problems...almost .
 
Just for kicks I googled "Komplete Audio 6 problems" and there were a bunch of things, of which few (if any) seemed to be an actual problem with interface hardware itself. My favorite was a USB keyboard controller that when plugged in, caused all kinds of problems. Apparently it drew just a bit more than it should have from the USB bus.

Yes, but if it works perfectly for her on the same machine with another piece of software......... That's why it's good to have more than one tool in the toolbox. Usually you want to grab the tool that "just works", and use it to get the job done. Then, maybe later, when you have the time, patience, fortitude, attitude, and appropriate glass of wine , you might feel like dealing with the issues the "problem" tool is giving you. Or, maybe not... You just wanna enjoy the glass of wine..............
 

Susan,
 
Disabling your Ethernet network adapter and your wireless (including Bluetooth) can definitely improve your machine's performance. It definitely did on my two laptops. My desktop not so much, but I keep that stuff disabled anyway. Also, under Device manager/Universal Serial Bus Controllers, try to disable every USB port except the one your Komplete interface is using.
 
Good luck.

+1 An i7 laptop is more than capable to run X3, especially for the things you have mentioned. A lot of the issues suggest "driver conflicts" or system settings as mentioned above. I am unfamiliar with your audio interface, but if ASIO drivers exist they are preferred and a lot of "power management" settings in Windows can cause havoc to a DAW (nothing should ever be allowed to idle, and the laptop should always be plugged in when used as a DAW (when feasible)).
 
X3 is incredibly stable, so threads like these are concerning. I feel the same as Craig, since I found some cassettes recently of a friend's band and was tracking that from a tape deck into X3 this morning, remasteriing other tracks with Audition (via the Realtek chip on a different sound output), and browsing a lot of stuff on the internet at the same time. In the middle of all of this, I was ALT-Tabbing back to X3 to drop markers between songs on the tracking audio. I am probably one of the more "extreme" users of X3 as I multitask often while using it.
 
Big longshot here, but this one bit me on X2... did you verify the MD5 hashes of the download files? They are expanded at the bottom of this page. I had a freaky issue where one file was the proper size but the MD5 was wrong with X2, and it sent me on a "bug hunt" for 3 months which was resolved by simply reinstalling X2 over the previous installation (I did not uninstall it). Also, installs should be done explicitly as Administrator (right click), and virus programs should be temporarily disabled during the installation process. There are similar MD5 hashes for the X3e patch which should be checked as well.

mettelus
+1 An i7 laptop is more than capable to run X3, especially for the things you have mentioned. A lot of the issues suggest "driver conflicts" or system settings as mentioned above. I am unfamiliar with your audio interface, but if ASIO drivers exist they are preferred and a lot of "power management" settings in Windows can cause havoc to a DAW (nothing should ever be allowed to idle, and the laptop should always be plugged in when used as a DAW (when feasible)).
 
X3 is incredibly stable, so threads like these are concerning. I feel the same as Craig, since I found some cassettes recently of a friend's band and was tracking that from a tape deck into X3 this morning, remasteriing other tracks with Audition (via the Realtek chip on a different sound output), and browsing a lot of stuff on the internet at the same time. In the middle of all of this, I was ALT-Tabbing back to X3 to drop markers between songs on the tracking audio. I am probably one of the more "extreme" users of X3 as I multitask often while using it.
 
Big longshot here, but this one bit me on X2... did you verify the MD5 hashes of the download files? They are expanded at the bottom of this page. I had a freaky issue where one file was the proper size but the MD5 was wrong with X2, and it sent me on a "bug hunt" for 3 months which was resolved by simply reinstalling X2 over the previous installation (I did not uninstall it). Also, installs should be done explicitly as Administrator (right click), and virus programs should be temporarily disabled during the installation process. There are similar MD5 hashes for the X3e patch which should be checked as well.

Hi mettelus-
 
Par 1: Yes, I'm using the ASIO drivers and I did check the power management settings. I basically never run the laptop on battery power.
 
Your par 2 is kinda how I imagined it would be ;). The idea of having to disconnect from the Internet while doing such trivial things (dragging a PRV loop point? saving a track template?) as I've been doing seems so last decade ! Not to mention the SONAR Help is online by default, along with all the helpful video tutorials, the forum, etc. I'll see tonight if disconnecting entirely helps.
 
Par 3: Thanks for those suggestions. I'm going to check everything you mentioned next chance. All digits crossed it's as simple as that!
 
-Susan
 
 

Susan G
Par 3: Thanks for those suggestions. I'm going to check everything you mentioned next chance. All digits crossed it's as simple as that!
 

When there's a situation where everything looks like it should work on paper, and does work for others, it's incredibly frustrating because you just KNOW there's this one thing somewhere that would fix the problem if only you knew about it...
 
The biggest thing for me was disabling the stupid HD Audio Driver. It cut my latency by 50%-75% with one disabled driver. Insane, but at least I found it. 
 
The other thing that drives me nuts is when Program A works with a setup but I can't do the same thing with Program B. But that also doesn't mean Program B can't do things Program A can't do. So much depends on how programs hook into the OS, and for better or worse, SONAR is joined at the hip with Windows. C++ Libraries, anyone?!?