Audition 3 suddenly using 80-100% CPU and skipping badly

[Scrump]

I've been using Audition 3 for about a year now with great success. My machine is a Compaq EVO510SFF w/ a 2G Pentium 4 & 1.5G of RAM, running XP Pro. The system is set up ACPI and although I've read that setting it up Standard PC might help, I've never had a single issue with A3 until now, and I'm mystified as to why this could suddenly be occuring. I really don't want to attempt to change to Standard PC, as I've read too much about the drawbacks, and this is currently my only machine. I'm a guitarist, and I do a lot of multitrack recording. I've always had to bounce any effects-heavy track and disable effects on that track, before recording any other track with effects. I've taken this in stride as a limitation of my machine. I could playback as many tracks as I wanted, included imported MP3's, WAV's etc... while recording another track with effects... all with no issues. Lately and suddenly, however, importing a single audio file with no overlaid effects while playing or recording on a track with any effects causes the imported file (and A3 in general, you can see it as well as hear it) to skip and stutter, sometimes for several seconds at a time. My machine is defragged on a regular basis, optimized for audio, CPU and RAM check out ok, no antivirus autostart or infection, all non-critical processes and services are routinely disabled and no change has been made to the machine at all...either before or after the problem started. I input and output (headphones) through an M-Audio JamLab, use GR3 as my amp modeler, and until this started, have NEVER experienced ANY detrimental issue. My HD is small to begin with (40G), and there's a little over 20 free. I routinely remove old .ses and wav's and archive (to flash or DVD) when I'm done due to the limited space. Any files I import are directly from my HD. Also, opening task mgr, I found that A3 is using 85 to 100 percent of my CPU all of a sudden, whereas before it would hover between 25 and 40, depending on what I was doing. The CPU usage is obviously (I guess) my problem, but why would A3 all of a sudden eat up the entire CPU? It skips and dominates the CPU now when I'm doing much less intensive tasks (ex. one MP3 or WAV playing on a track while I'm playing or recording on another in my standard -always used- main guitar recording configuration) and never did before. Before this started, I could do much more with no issue. I literally turned off my machine 3 nights ago, after a succesful session, turned it on the next day to begin work on the SAME session, & the problem started. I was reading KB troubleshooting articles a few minutes ago, and they suggested to increase my page file to: inital 1.5 times installed RAM, and maximum twice initial. I've done this and restarted with no change. This is in direct contrast to every audio optimization rule I've read (all I've read say REDUCE amount of page file to optimize, but doing either makes no difference with this issue). Thanks for your replies, as I'm dead in the water here.
PLEASE HELP.

[DT Chris]

Note: Please break your posts into paragraphs, this was VERY, VERY, hard to read, and is equivalent to the dreaded "Wall of Text"

There are several things you can do...

1) Increase your RAM.

2) Ensure other programs aren't running in the background.

Depending on your CPU power, you may or may not be able to run other programs. Usually as a rule, running BitTorrent, Limewire, or Antivirus programs, etc while trying to record/playback is a bad thing. They will be scanning, writing and reading to the same disk you are trying to use in Audition for the same thing. That equals latency and lag.

3) Get a 'scratch' disk.

A scratch disk is a secondary disk that can take the load of your main disk. Imagine trying to write information (the current track being recorded) as well as reading information (playing back previously recorded tracks) on the same disk. Especially if the files in use are fragmented. The 'needle' trying to skip back and across the disk reading/writing simultaneously can eventually slow it down and create latency.

For this reason, many use other disks to 'read' samples or pre-recorded tracks from, and use their main disk to 'write' to, or vice versa (however you set it up). This use of equipment is also common with Adobe Photoshop users or other intense programs, so that each disk can share a part of the burden.

4) On that note, pay attention to how full your current disk is

Just because you have 20Gs of 60Gs left, doesnt mean it will be that effective. Chances are at that stage, your OS has spread your files all across that disk, and you're dealing with fragmented/separated files.

I always store my recorded tracks on my scratch disk, where Audition will 'read' from, and have set my main disk to allow Audition to create the temporary tracks until I save the project. In other words, I am not reading and writing to the same disk at the same time.


5) Ensure audio interface is functioning, and proper drivers are used.

Ensure you are currently using the correct sound device in Audition. I've had times where I've installed/tried other recording programs and they changed the default device, which for some reason reflected in Audition. Or you changed it yourself...

Ensure you are able to play back/record that number of tracks you want to... Some audio interfaces are better than others in that regard. Ensure you can play that many tracks...

[Scrump]

Thanks for the advice, Chris. I'll give it a shot.