drop outs during playing and weirdness during rendering

Im playing a project but in order for me to play it start to finish everytime after I stop, I have to go and reset the config file to defaults. So for instances after the track is done playing, or if I stop playing music to make an adjustment, I have to reset the the config file to get to the end with out dropouts. 
 
 
Also recently Everytime I render the song I'm working on (44.1-16bit) (16-bit rendering in preferences) audible bounce or fast bounce, main outputs or entire mix, 64-bit mix unticked ,  I get a weird distortion over my audio thats only present in the rendering @3:05-3:12 into my song. No sign of foul play from plugins or jumping automation.
 
 
My session is 74 tracks, about 20 waves plugins, rest cakewalk (10),  I7 @4.8 GHZ 8 percent usage, 16 gigs of ram about 8 gigs used, all tracks are being accessed from ram on a ram drive so hard drive speed isn't an issue. Video card latest drives but running at 16bit color at 1600 resolution (waves plugins respond better to this and less video issues and dropouts) Tascam 1800us for a wimpy soundcard...lol