First try it without any audio peripherals, if that fails it has nothing to do with the hardware. from there it's an OS or a software conflict. HP puts bloatware on all their new computers. I would kill the bloatware and delete it all.
I would disable any disk encryption
I would make sure nothing else is running in the backgroun, and no program is using the audio hardware.
I would disable antivirus/anti-phishing/anti-anything.
IF it crashes with the audio hardware is attached but NOT when there's no audio hardware, I would update the drivers on the audio hardware. I would also check another audio recording program and see if the other audio program uses the hardware and survives or crashes.
this list goes on, I hope you get what I mean....
