Hi all,
 
Since a few months back, I´m running Sonar on a Z620 workstation (32GB + E5-1650 (6 *3.2GHz). First, I had a few issues with dropouts/clicks/noise but all I had to do was to change the Windows Power profile from Balanced to High Performance which locked the CPU at the highest clock (3.5 GHz due to the turbo feature). Now it´s running fine!
 
After a while, I wanted to keep power usage at a minimum during idling so I wrote a simple Python app to automatically switch to high performance when Sonar is running. Balanced is the default and if the computer is left idling for 10 minutes, it automatically switches to the "Eco" profile. Let me know if you´d like me to publish the source (very simple).
 

I would be very interested in seeing that utility especially if the idle time could be adjusted.  You could do something like place it in a public Dropbox location and provide the link by PM upon request.
 
Adjusting the power scheme in Windows is a good tip.  Anyone using a DAW should be doing that. 
 
Years (and decades) ago, there were many tweeks needed for Windows, and sites like Black Viper to provide them.  Now, however, there are only two things I do with all music-making PCs I encounter: disable the HD audio to the graphics card, and adjust the power scheme to full.

Ok, everyone can now find this little hack at Dropbox. It´s currently not very user friendly but OTOH, it´s very simple and easy to modify. Everyone who sees the source code could tell right away I´m not a programmer (which is very  true) but I didn´t find any utility fitting my needs so I had write it anyway :).
 
https://www.dropbox.com/s...yFw9WnSDyME-ebuRa?dl=0
 
It´s not compiled so you would need Python 2.7 to run + Colorama. Before running, you need to enter your Power Profile GUID's (more about this in the readme.txt.
 
Feel free to edit/improve/distribute as you see fit. If any real programmer would do a real utility doing the same thing it would be great.
 

I thought each power profile lets you make customized changes to specific functions of your computer.
I use the balanced profile, but use the customization option to tailor all my computer's components to allow maximum power when using Sonar, but will go into sleep mode after 20 minutes if Sonar is not running.
My computer will even "take a nap" if I have Sonar running but is idle for 20 minutes or more.

You´re perfectly right. In my experience, the main difference between the "high performance" and "balanced" with respect to Sonar performance is the "Minimum processor state" under the Advanced power plan settings. In the "High Performance" this is set to 100% and the "Balanced" default is 0% (maximum is 100% on both).
 
However, it seems Sonar is the only application benefitting from a minimum of 100% since low latency audio work requires full throttle even an minor CPU loads, something the CPU power saving features does not seem to handle well. Hence the special treatment for Sonar.
 
So, I could of course set Balanced to a 100% minimum process state but would rather like to only run the CPU at constant maximum frequency when it´s needed, ie when I´m running Sonar.
 
 

Leee
I thought each power profile lets you make customized changes to specific functions of your computer.
I use the balanced profile, but use the customization option to tailor all my computer's components to allow maximum power when using Sonar, but will go into sleep mode after 20 minutes if Sonar is not running.
My computer will even "take a nap" if I have Sonar running but is idle for 20 minutes or more.