Hi folks,
This is driving me mad. Long story short: more or less 3 months ago my hd started to die. Changed it for an ssd and started to install a new system from scratch.

The guy who did this service for me installed win 11 (I was using 8.1). My machine is an intel 5, 8 gb RAM, everything was working great apart from the dying hd.

As soon as I installed Ableton 12 and Vital, I noticed these audio drops, glitches, things going silent for 2 seconds.

Both in Ableton and Vital standalone.

CPU was below 20% and RAM below 40%.

Tried two weeks to find a culprit using task manager and messing with my audio interface. Problem was "solved" after I started to use Asio4all instead of my audio interface driver (an old m-audio. I kept using it, but just with the asio4all driver instead of the driver that came with it).

For two months everything was running smooth: no glitches, no audio drops.

So, I put the blame on my old m-audio interface driver.

BUT...

the problems have just started today again: out of the blue, audio drops and glitches in Ableton, Vital standalone freezes (the gui freezes) and the audio drops for 2 seconds, from time to time.

Yes, I increased the buffer in Asio4all settings etc and nothing (went up to 1024, even more).

As it is a new system, I have almost nothing installed, and when running task manager, no cpu spikes, nothing strange that I could observe.

Can you please think of any advice, a proceedure, a free software etc. that could help me identify what is causing this?

Could Win 11 be the culprit (as my laptop is already 10 years old)?

Thanks in advance!

 

Last edited: Oct 9, 2025 at 9:23 PM

You could try this asio driver/s from my sig first, FL Asio and/or asio2wasapi

This is where would i start first if everything is as you described... after you tried that

https://mpvci.co.uk/
MPVCI 3.9 latest vcredist 2005-2025 and start from there, also make sure you got DX11/12 installed and gl with abltn12 and an older pc.

 

Last edited: Oct 9, 2025 at 10:06 PM

Also try LatencyMon:

https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

Well known tool to pinpoint what´s causing trouble.

 

Set the buffer size to 256 samples and leave it as is for now!

Work through this and set everything up correctly!

Optimizing Windows for Audio
https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/209071469-Optimizing-Windows-for-Audio

 

Hmm. So Vital causes problems in standalone AND Ableton 12.

Have you tried a different synth in standalone mode, and then the same synth in Ableton.

I ask because the common denominator could be Vital!

One other thing. 8gb Ram is hopelessly out of it's depth with Live 12. I know because I use 8gb with Live 10. Live 11 can sometimes get a bit iffy with Vital.


Ignore the 40% warning you get. I can tell you categorically. Win 11 with Live 12 needs WAY more than 8gb Ram to run smoothly.

 

Win 11 can definitely be the culprit, since it's the only thing you have changed. Once you are using the correct driver, buffer size, etc.

8 gb of RAM is really not enough for anything. The faster SSD is probably highlighting what a bottleneck your RAM is. Intel i5 is definitely getting up there.

But here's the thing, at least to me. You spent money on an upgrade to the SSD. You should be able to get the machine at least back to the same running condition.

Latencymon is probably your best first step, or getting rid of ASIO4ALL if you can.

Here's what the AI has to say:

Spoiler

1. Windows 11 on older hardware:
   Your laptop being ~10 years old is significant. Windows 11 has stricter hardware requirements than Win 8.1, and even if it “runs,” background processes, power management, and driver compatibility can introduce audio glitches—even when CPU/RAM usage looks low.
   
   
2. Audio driver issues:
   The fact that switching to ASIO4ALL temporarily fixed the problem points strongly toward a driver conflict or latency issue. ASIO4ALL works by bypassing the interface’s native driver, which can mask underlying problems—but it’s not a true fix.
   
   
3. Background interrupts / DPC latency:
   Audio dropouts often come from DPC (Deferred Procedure Call) latency, which is caused by drivers misbehaving rather than CPU load. Even on a low-load system, faulty drivers (network, graphics, storage) can cause audio dropouts.
   
   Free tool to check this:
   • LatencyMon – it analyzes DPC latency and can point to which driver is causing audio glitches. Run it while your audio is dropping to see if a driver spikes.
4. Other things to check:
   • Make sure all drivers are up-to-date, especially chipset, network, and storage (SSD) drivers.
     
     
   • Disable Wi-Fi or Bluetooth temporarily to see if wireless drivers are causing interrupts.
     
     
   • Set your power plan to High Performance and disable CPU throttling / sleep states.
     
     
   • Check SSD health with CrystalDiskInfo (even new SSDs can have firmware issues).
     
     
   • If possible, try your audio interface on another PC to confirm it’s not starting to fail.
5. Potential Win 11 culprits:
   Windows 11 has aggressive background tasks like indexing, telemetry, and antivirus scans that can pop up unexpectedly. With ASIO4ALL, these sometimes cause glitches even without obvious CPU spikes.

Bottom line:
This doesn’t necessarily mean your laptop is “too old,” but Win 11 + an older audio interface + driver conflicts is a perfect storm for random audio dropouts. I’d start with LatencyMon to identify the culprit driver, then update, disable, or roll back drivers as needed.

Also, you probably do not remember whatever tweaks and any optimization you did prior to this happening. But you probably did do some. and you might want to revisit that.

 

Guys, thanks to the responses. I am performing some tests and tweaks today.

All I have noticed for now is: there are some jumps in the cpu meter in the task manager when the drops/glitches happen (cpu is like 17% and then it peaks to 27% with an audio drop/glitch).

Will be back and report in some hours!

PS: the very strange thing is that for 2 months all was working fine!

 

are you absolutely sure that laptop isn't overheating, I mean, neither cpu, nor ram, nor ssd nor any other component?

W11 can be culprit for corrupted power management, some older PCs aren't designed for power management handoff, so either Windows 11 fails to accept BIOS power management, or misunderstands system topology to handle power management on OS level,
also often people are confused between Windows 11 Power Schemes and Power Modes, you need to adjust both to max performance if you don't want any hiccups (assuming cooling handles sustained loads without overheating)

 

Also, were you using Ableton 12 on your prior Windows installation? My DAW Mac is perfectly functional with way more current stuff that you would probably expect; Cubase 13, Wavelab 11, Bitwig 5, Reaper, etc. as long as it is compatible with my MacOS version. I say this because when I installed Ableton 12 one day, is when that ended. The performance was absolutely terrible and it got uninstalled because it would have been close to useless.

Maybe you ultimately end up "downgrading" back to Windows 10, or even 8.1; but just make sure your problem isn't just the v12 Ableton. On my machine, it did pretty much what your current issue is. For me, it is way beyond just the normal sluggish performance of a new version of something when you are pushing the ceiling on what an older machine can run. It was way past that, while 11 is usable.

 

is your system up to date? maybe some update triggered reindexing, malware scan, account cloud sync, onedrive, whatever,
look into task manager, startup items, disable everything that shouldn't start automatically

 

Have to leave for work now, folks! Will be back tomorrow. Will take into consideration all suggestions, thanks a lot!!!

Will report back tomorrow.

PS: projects without Vital also presented glitches and audio dropouts, so it is not Vital.

1) If I change buffer to 256 things get really worse.
2) doesn't seem to be overheating: problem is there as soon as I turn on the laptop, but will check more carefully later.
3) turning "hardware buffer" option on in Asio4all seems to have made things ok again, with buffer 512. Could even go to 256, but with a glitch now and then. Have to test more, but got no time now.
4) it was happening in Vital standalone, with patches that do not put stress on the CPU. So it is not only Ableton related.

Thanks everyone!

 

Last edited: Oct 10, 2025 at 6:36 PM

Yes, really considering a downgrade if the problems persist!

 

it's an emulation of proper ASIO, runs on CPU so it adds additional load on CPU, it still kinda utilizes underlying Windows audio engine, so any low latency operation (=lower buffers) stressed CPU even more, it's rarely worth it imo

 

If macOS users think they understand Windows 11, Upgrading from Windows 11 to Windows 10 doesn't do anything at all. They're better off using an older version of Ableton, like Live 11, which doesn't require as much power as the 12 version.

Live Minimum System Requirements

• Windows 10 (Build 1909 and higher), Windows 11
• Intel® Core™ i5 processor or AMD multi-core processor
• 8 GB RAM
• 1366x768 screen resolution
• ASIO-compatible audio hardware for Link support (also recommended for optimal audio performance)
• Approximately 3 GB of system drive space for the base installation (8 GB of free space recommended)
• Up to 76 GB of free space for additional sound content

 

You could try downgrading to Windows 10 which is probably the solution you are after. I would never install Windows 11 on a Windows 8 machine.