I'm having problems with my VST hardware/software setup and would really appreciate some advice.
For the past couple of months, I've been running my MIDI setup through USB MIDI. In other words USB out for each of my 2 keyboards to USB in on my laptop. I'm also running a Korg Nanocontroller through USB MIDI. So I have three devices going into the computer via USB. I'm running Cantabile Performer as my DAW, and have four or five virtual instrument plug-ins. The computer is a Toshiba Satellite Pro that's about a year old. Theoretically, it has plenty of processing capacity and RAM to run my set up. I'm using the built-in a sound card.

The problem is that Cantabile crashes a lot. Last night, for example, at practice I ran my set up for about an hour without any problems. Then the output became extremely distorted to the point that only distortion and no notes were recognizable when I pressed the keyboard. The computer was mostly unresponsive but I was able to go into Task Manager and eventually was able to close Cantabile. When I reopened Cantabile, everything was okay. Then a little bit later, I started getting a very loud white noise kind of sound with frequent popping sounds mixed in.

I'm using ASIO4ALL with the latest driver update. It's said it the default level, which theoretically minimizes the likelihood of the program crashing. The CPU load always stays low when I'm running my set up, regardless of how many VST's are active.

Thoughts about what's going on?

I'm wondering if I need to look at a different set-up to run my virtual instruments. I really like the sound I'm getting from my VST's but I can't continue justifying using them, especially when playing live, when things are so unpredictable. I don't have an arm and a leg to spend to remedy the situation.

Probably you have set up cantabiles multi processor support and some of your plugins are incompatible with that. Try to disable multiprocessor support.

Concerning "enough" processing power, well it's more complicated than that on a windows pc...

I've disabled multiprocessor support. What does this option do?

Multiprocessor support tries to use more than one core of modern cpus - to calculate plugins audio in parallel as good as possible. Multiprocessor support is a somewhat experimental feature. As said, not all plugins work with this well, so some experimentation and digging is the only way finding out more.

If you list the plugins you're using probably other members here can comment on it.

Let us know if my suggestion alters your problem.

TiUser's suggestion that it's a plugin (or maybe more than one plugin) is right on the money.
A process of elimination is the only solution if you wish to continue using multi processor support.