There should be a "High Performance" power plan, this should work best for VSTs.

Not that I bought it for gaming, the graphics processor was attractive for my 3D modelling.

When I remember to suppress (KILL) the support assistant the problems seem to go away.
I just have to kill it after every re-boot if I want to run pianoteq.

Having used the Van Basco player for several years it was my "go to" midi player - and of course I was running loopbe to connect it to pianoteq.

Anyway, I am still having failures with VanBasco and LoopBe NOT running.

Yes, Alienware background processes pop out of the background from time to time and I suspect that the support assistant MIGHT be the guilty party here.
Since I am disconnected from the web MOST of the time I am going through anything that looks like a watchdog process.

I did a drivers update this morning, no failures so far but I won't believe it until I have a week or so without buzz.

BTW, performance index with   PTQ right now shows a spread of 128 to 155, while browsing the web.

In looking at windows processes ordered by CPU use I saw some odd Win32 background processes that seemed to be taking mpre time than I wanted.

Well, the midi juke box player that I was using (VanBascos Karaoke player) is a 32 bit program.
I have now gone to using ONLY the Pianoteq play list - and I await further failures - maybe that was it, maybe not.

In the modern Windows operating system, 32-bit applications live side-by-side with 64-bit applications. The operating system allocates up to 4 GB maximum memory space for them as needed. Having one or two 32-bit applications shouldn't cause problems because the 64-bit operating system knows enough to allocate the most memory to the 64-bit applications. The problem, however, is having too many applications running, will eat up resources, and having a hog application eating up the resources is a bigger problem.

The thing to watch for is CPU hogging. The Dell support software and the Alienware stuff really pegs my CPU badly even without Pianoteq running. After I noticed the system freeze, I checked the running tasks using Task Manager (Press CTRL_SHIFT_ESC), and the Alienware apps were running full bore. When I killed the tasks, the system became responsive. Dell's Support software too does this as well, and when the similar thing happened again, I ended up ending that task and this made quite a difference in performance.

Another thing too, remember this is a laptop and not a desktop. Laptop processors are different than their cousins the desktop version, and laptop hardware is also subject to a lot of power management well beyond the desktop equivalent. The laptop will idle down and turn off subsystems when things are quiet. If Pianoteq runs a lot in memory and taps at the CPU when needed rather than busying the CPU all the time, then those parts could be slowing down.

I agree there's an outside chance that there is an actual hardware problem, but I doubt it. I've run diagnostics, both built-in and separate and found nothing wrong.

Well, the midi juke box player that I was using (VanBascos Karaoke player) is a 32 bit program.
I have now gone to using ONLY the Pianoteq play list - and I await further failures - maybe that was it, maybe not.

Here is what pianoteq sees as my system;

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10750H CPU @ 2.6GHz, M5/S2/F6, x12

CPU Frequency 2592MHz

At the same time task manager says;

Base speed 2.59 MHz
Speed 4.15GHz

So. PTQ seems to read base speed not overclock speed.

Same here in my laptop with the i7 7700hq, PT only sees up to 2801MHz, and Windows 3.6GHz.

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10750H CPU @ 2.6GHz, M5/S2/F6, x12

CPU Frequency 2592MHz

At the same time task manager says;

Base speed 2.59 MHz
Speed 4.15GHz

So. PTQ seems to read base speed not overclock speed.

I am on a more "PORTABLE" laptop right now and don't remember the CPU number, other than that it is i7 with 12 threads, a base clock rate of 2.6 GHz and the standard overclock that typically hovers around 4GHz, 4.5 or so on some  programs.

So, it is no slouch. 
{Come to think of it - the CPU number starts with10
Alienware M17 R3 is the model, Dell is the manufacturer}

Anyway, in playing moderately dense midi files it goes into about a 2 second BUZZ once or twice per hour.

Off topic; if anyone has this model and has done a 16 to 32 Gig RAM upgrade please tell me how.
Removing the bottom panel seems to indicate that the RAM sockets are on the TOP of the motherboard, i.e. between the motherboard and the keyboard.

I am wondering if there is an easier way to access them than by taking the motherboard out and flipping it, e.g. can the keyboard be removed ?

Edit: If you want to use GNU/Linux, choose an optimized distro like Ubuntu Studio.

THIS machine is an Alien M17, 12 thread I7, 2080 graphics proessor, 16 gig of memory, base clock 2.6 gig, overcloking to almost 4.5 Gig (throttled by temperature).

So, I am a little surprised that it stumbles when playing midi files that aren't very "dense", i.e. polyphony rarely goes above 50.

I got a sceen shot last night and that raises a few questions.
1) Pianoteq sees my clock at the base rate of 2.6 Gig while task manager clearly shows it to be much higher - why is this ?
2) Bahh, I can't figure out how to insert a snapshot into this message.
3) Task manager is showing a couple of hundred processes.
I assume many of these are for the benefit of Windows itself, but whenever I have looked at them none are taking a significant amount of processor time or memory.
Are there any compute intensive background processes that I should look for and kill?

I'll post again as soon as I can figure out how to post the screen snapshot, BTW it does show that I have multi core rendering checked.