[Darryl Ramm]

5,400 rpm drive will suck. Where is the dedicated audio/session drive 7,200 rpm or faster or SSD you are supposed to have? Getting a good windows laptop to run Pro Tools can be difficult. Many folks here would recommend a MacBook Pro instead, but until you get even in the ballpark with the audio disk requirement you may be wasting your time. Even if that is not causing all your problems you don't know until you get that sorted out. And I would just not dick around with HDDs in a laptop, look at SSD options. Either external (e.g Samsung T1 USB3) or internal if you have a second drive bay or can replace the optical drive with one. While at it I would replace the boot/system drive with an SSD as well. Samsung 850 Pro or Evo.

Start at the "help us help you" link up top of this page.

Fully optimise the computer--do every last thing.

Make sure "ignore errors" is *not* checked in the playback engine dialog. You want to catch any and all errors.

Are all your plugins up to date/compatible with your Windows and Pro Tools versions? (Both of them?) trying the latest AAX plugins instead of RTAS if they exist?

Do standard troubleshooting, trash prefs, try other sessions, try a new empty session, temp. remove all plugins from the plugin folders, etc. and report back.

Post a Sandra report. Look at other reports on DUC to make sure you are posting the right stuff. Run that with all your disk drives attached.

Describe your sessions. What sample rate? How many tracks? What plugins or VIs? And how many instances of each?