What version Vegas?
What O/S?
Size of JPEG?
“Crash” describes a multitude of conditions – be specific. What crashed? What are the indications of a crash?
Do you have enough hard-disk space?
Maybe I didn’t read the question correctly, because the answer to me is so obvious and simple. Right click on the track and add the volume envelope. You can double click on the envelope at the beginning and end of the target clip to make an adjustment point to increase the volume for that clip only. (Actually, you want two points at the beginning and two at the end to keep the prior and subsequent clips unchanged).
Remove 1394 from the network protocols. You may be seeing an interruption when the computer checks for other nodes on your local network. It will do that from time to time, but usually more often than 90-seconds.
Well, it certainly would do the job, but since quality is not a factor, the price is too steep. Heck, if I could get eight cheap sound cards into a PC, that would be my solution.