Sound in Platinum Breaks Up Increasingly When Adding Plug-Ins

Whether recording or playing back, the sound starts breaking up irregularly, sometimes infrequently, sometimes more frequently, as I add plug-ins, even at 48K sample rate. I'm using ASIO drivers. Sometimes it sounds like listening to someone on their cell phone with a spotty signal. At its worst, it sounds like a Geiger counter going crazy, particularly when I add in Guitar Rig or Bias Fx (both 64 bit) along with a track of Dim Pro and one of Session Drummer or Addictive Drums. I have Platinum 64 bit on an HP desktop with Windows 7 and 6-core processor - 3.2 GHz - with 16 GB RAM. Hitachi platter drive at 7200 rpm, however pulling sound files from My Book 3TB external hard drive. Using MOTU Ultralite mk3 Firewire Interface for guitars. When I bounce an entire mix, the mix breaks up as well on playback, however when I convert mix to mp3, no hint  of the breakups. Someone suggested my RAM was bad so I swapped out RAM cards - no change. Someone else has suggested trying an internal solid state drive but I would prefer to not go to that expense if that's not the problem. Any ideas out there? Thanks in advance for your feedback.

Welcome to the forum!
 
Your asio buffer settings are most likely the problem. They are at the very least a good place to start.
 
https://www.cakewalk.com/Support/Knowledge-Base/2007013007/Audio-Dropouts-Clicks-and-Pops-When-Playing-and-Recording
 

Four on the floor - increase buffer size...

Thanks very much, everybody, for your feedback and for the link to the Dropouts section at Product Support. I read that thoroughly. I was running my buffers at 512 already but bumped it up to 1024 and it reduced drops and stutters some. Went to 2048 and no change from 1024. Going to download the DPC Latency Checker to see if a problem with DPC Latency Spikes although I'm not running on a laptop and don't have a WiFi adapter on my desktop. Thing is, from my limited perspective, I'm not doing an extensive production on the tune I'm working on. Acoustic guitar with compression, EQ and reverb. Dim Pro fingered bass with EQ and compression. Dim Pro drawn bass with no fx. Electric guitar with Bias FX plug-in. Session drummer no fx so far. Compression on Master channel. Interestingly, I can turn off Bias Fx only and it goes away. I can run Bias Fx and turn off everything else and it comes back. On another piece using Guitar Rig, Dim Pro, Session Drummer and Rapture, I get a wider variation of problems as I turn things on and off. Otherwise, disconnected from Internet, antivirus/malware deactivated. I do have a hammer in the garage that I haven't tried yet. It fixes cars sometimes! Will report back on results. Thanks again!

If I am reading the OP correctly, the projects are located on a slow external drive. If this is the case, try moving the project to the internal drive or better still install a second drive in the desktop. It would not have to be an SSD, a second conventional 7200RPM hard drive would be better than running from the MyBook. This

GuitarSIU12
 even at 48K sample rate

suggests attempts at higher sample rates. I doubt the external drive would be up to that challenge at all.

It sounds like Bias might be the issue, and googling around you're not the only one.

Thanks for the additional input, all. Dan and Dave, wasn't familiar with freezing tracks until you mentioned it. Not quite that far along in my Sonar knowledge just yet. Will look into that further but given my not exactly 2nd nature recording skills, if I can avoid adding more steps to the process, I would prefer that. Base 57, only problem with the My Book is that it's slower (5400) than my Hitachi internal drive (7200). I hit play and it takes up to 10 seconds for play to commence. Much faster running directly off of my C Drive, which is, I'm told, a no-no. Sanderxpander, I did the google thing and see what you mean. Of course, I have the same problem with Guitar Rig 4, maybe worse. I have listened to some other pieces that have no guitar amp plug-ins but have multiple Dim Pro and Session Drummer tracks - similar, more subtle crackling and popping. Bias and GR just seem to kick those and audio dropouts into high gear all by themselves. Scook, things keep coming around to the internal SSD as a 2nd drive just for Sonar and related programs.
 
All in all, my wife may have the ultimate solution after watching me chase this and various other 7-year old computer problems down rabbit holes.  She asked me why I keep spending money on fixes rather than buy a new computer with exactly what I need on it. What a revelation! My response was that it was better coming from her than me. So, gonna try the track freezing thing and a couple other no-low expense tricks and see how that works but ultimately might just update the big box. In the meantime, I've learned a bunch from you all. I appreciate your perspectives on this my first foray into the forum. Great experience! Thanks and have a great week!