Sound Crackling but CPU isn't spiking

i use 2 harddrives: 1) 500gb: Windows, Programs, plugins. 2)2TB: Audio, Samples, Projects.
I tried disabling multiprocessing in Kontakt, and tried disabling multiprocessing in cubase too, tried audio boost and normal.
I have internet and other unused stuff disabled. few hours ago i disabled all non-windows services besides presonus’s universal control.

I tried Kontakt in standalone, no crackling. maybe it’s not kontakt afterall, because I was working on a song and when I added more patches in omnisphere the crackling seemed to happen more often. but maybe it was effecting kontakt somehow… I have also re-installed cubase.
none of this helped.

How can i check or set the clocks?
when I go into “system” directly in presonus studiolive it says “firewire”, when i turn off the computer it goes into 44.1khz, in presonus software “universal control” it is set to 44.1khz, in cubase 44.1khz 16 bit.