CPU Spikes - I've Tried Everything I Can Think Of

Folks,

I "upgraded" to Windows 10 on my personal rig a few months back and since then I've been getting random CPU spikes in Hauptwerk followed by audible ticks. This happens irrespective of which sample set is loaded, how much RAM is being used, the number of stops being played, etc. and I cannot force it to do it. No single event seems to trigger it.

I have been all the way through the "Glitch Free" guide - every single entry.

LatencyMon shows no errors.

I have disabled every single unused audio device (and even tried them all on their own).

I have disabled every single USB device - I even removed the PC from my Hauptwerk rig and merely play MIDI files through it, through my Cymantic LP-16.

Still happens. Every few mins. I cannot see anything obvious in Task Manager's Processes section that seems to jump to the top of the list, etc.

It also happens regardless if audio is actually playing or not.

I have updated the MOBO BIOS..... as well as disabled the onboard audio card.

I'm just out of ideas. I never had this problem prior to Windows 10, so maybe the solution is to roll back to Windows 7?

My biggest fear, though, is that I just built a massive computer for my church Hauptwerk instrument that is also running Windows 10. I just cannot afford to have these kinds of issues on that machine - but I have not had the ability to test it yet. My personal rig has just gotten unbearable. It seems to have gotten worse - especially with the new SP Casavant set that I downloaded. It's not SP's issues, obviously. But it does seem a bit more prevalent. This isn't provable, though. And regardless, it still happens with Salisbury - which I most frequently use.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thank you,

Have you disabled Superfetch and Runtime Broker? I had the same annoying problem after upgrading to W10 and this cured it. Details can be found in Technical Support section.
Julian.

I second the recommendation about turning off Superfetch.
Try disconnecting / disabling all network connections and if possible turn off Bluetooth.
Iain

After done the 2 hints above, remove the CPU consuming apps from your PC.
1. Type 'PowerShell' into the Search Windows box and open it as an administrator.
2. Type or paste the rows below, line by line. This will uninstall that app or more apps (like zunemusic and zunevideo by using the *) from your machine.

Code: Select all

Get-AppxPackage *bing* -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *messaging* -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *photo* -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *phone* -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *skype* -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *windowsalarms* -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *windowscamera* -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *windowsmaps* -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *windowsstore* -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *windowscommunicationsapps* -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *xbox* -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *zune* -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage

I too have had the same trouble with a W10 PC that Drew is reporting and can't wait to get down to the church and try the suggestions Bonanches and evertjan have mentioned. I'll do that this afternoon and will report back as soon as I have determined if it helps or not.

I was having this problem with our Win10 PC at the church a few weeks ago after updating everything. My problem was it re-enabled Superfetch. We've played 2 services since with no issues. I haven't checked Runtime Broker yet.

I too have had the same trouble with a W10 PC that Drew is reporting and can't wait to get down to the church and try the suggestions Bonanches and evertjan have mentioned. I'll do that this afternoon and will report back as soon as I have determined if it helps or not.

Hi,

What version of Windows 10 are you using?
Windows 10 Home?
Windows 10 Pro?
Windows 10 Enterprise?

Thomas

I am on Windows 10 Home.

My personal rig still has the issue - I have done everything listed above - as well as EVERYTHING in the "Glitch Free" guide AGAIN.

My other computer, the 8-Core 64GB RAM that I built for my church project does NOT have the issue and is on the same version of Windows.....

I'm beginning to think the hardware in that older machine just isn't meant to deal with Windows 10. It's only a quad-core with 16GB RAM.

The clicks and pops are definitely more prevalent in the SP Casavant than Salisbury. The Casavant uses about 2x the RAM....

The used set is too big and there is no free RAM any more. Parts of the set are stored in the pagefile on the harddisc/SSD and when using that it generates audio spikes.

Try to load the set in a lower bitrate to fit the complete set in RAM and keep some free RAM (see the Free RAM indicator on the screen during loading the set). Or put some more RAM in your PC.

I am on Windows 10 Home.

My personal rig still has the issue - I have done everything listed above - as well as EVERYTHING in the "Glitch Free" guide AGAIN.

HW staff does not recommend changing Hauptwerk.exe process priority to realtime, but it seems to always work when there's no other solution for CPU spikes and/or audio glitches. Run Taskmanger, click on Details tab and look for Haupwerk (x).exe process. Right click on it and select Realtime for priority. If it works for you, there's a tool named System Explorer that can fix the setting automatically for any process you want. There's a whole thread on HW forum about this.

The used set is too big and there is no free RAM any more. Parts of the set are stored in the pagefile on the harddisc/SSD and when using that it generates audio spikes.

Try to load the set in a lower bitrate to fit the complete set in RAM and keep some free RAM (see the Free RAM indicator on the screen during loading the set). Or put some more RAM in your PC.

But the Spike happens even in Salisbury, using half as much RAM. Granted, not quite as frequently, but it still happens.

I am on Windows 10 Home.

My personal rig still has the issue - I have done everything listed above - as well as EVERYTHING in the "Glitch Free" guide AGAIN.

HW staff does not recommend changing Hauptwerk.exe process priority to realtime, but it seems to always work when there's no other solution for CPU spikes and/or audio glitches. Run Taskmanger, click on Details tab and look for Haupwerk (x).exe process. Right click on it and select Realtime for priority. If it works for you, there's a tool named System Explorer that can fix the setting automatically for any process you want. There's a whole thread on HW forum about this.

I had already tried this, too. No benefit.

Are the spikes always there and not only with the full organ? In the last case maybe the polyphony is set to high.

You can test if the CPU cores running at a fixed speed with HWinfo (https://www.hwinfo.com/).
Download the portable version (https://www.fosshub.com/HWiNFO.html?dwl=hwi_592.zip), extract the download and run the 64bit version (HWiNFO64.exe).
Direct after starting the program you will see green bar(s), for every CPU core 1.
The must be at a constant nearly full level, only green colored. In that case the CPU is running at a fixed speed.
If the green bars are moving, the CPU speed is variable. This generates spikes.

Are the spikes always there and not only with the full organ? In the last case maybe the polyphony is set to high.

Now that I read this, it reminds me of an issue I encountered some time back when I was just goofing around with polyphony settings. Given the fact you report that the issue shows up on all sets but more so on larger sets could possibly make sense that the polyphony is simply set too high. I recently was able to produce the exact same results with the Amley Schulze. I went from around 3900 polyphony to 4500 and sure enough, things started clicking and popping with fuller registrations, I backed the setting off and all was good again. If the set is of the 6 channel variety and you are loading and using the set that way you have to consider you are putting considerably more load on the CPU as it attempts to keep up with the polyphony for all the audio signals, more so if it's a wet set. I'd try a couple of simple tests, lower your polyphony, try a larger registration and see what happens. You could also verify if polyphony settings is the culprit or not by just letting the set idle and see if the spikes happen while you are not playing. If they do, then it's another issue. Could be a hardware issue such as your sound card doesn't play nice with Windows 10. I'm not sold on Windows 10, maybe you roll back to Windows 7?

Marc

Are the spikes always there and not only with the full organ? In the last case maybe the polyphony is set to high.

Now that I read this, it reminds me of an issue I encountered some time back when I was just goofing around with polyphony settings. Given the fact you report that the issue shows up on all sets but more so on larger sets could possibly make sense that the polyphony is simply set too high. I recently was able to produce the exact same results with the Amley Schulze. I went from around 3900 polyphony to 4500 and sure enough, things started clicking and popping with fuller registrations, I backed the setting off and all was good again. If the set is of the 6 channel variety and you are loading and using the set that way you have to consider you are putting considerably more load on the CPU as it attempts to keep up with the polyphony for all the audio signals, more so if it's a wet set. I'd try a couple of simple tests, lower your polyphony, try a larger registration and see what happens. You could also verify if polyphony settings is the culprit or not by just letting the set idle and see if the spikes happen while you are not playing. If they do, then it's another issue. Could be a hardware issue such as your sound card doesn't play nice with Windows 10. I'm not sold on Windows 10, maybe you roll back to Windows 7?

Marc

Yes, the spikes happen even when sitting idle. I can walk away from it, and come back a few mins later and the upper-most red bar will be lit. So, it spikes even when nothing is happening.

I had already tried this, too. No benefit.

Have you turned engine off/on or reloaded sampleset after changing process priority?

Another possible solution is to use HW as a VSTi and connect it to DAW software that might handle audio streaming in somewhat different way.