Well, Cactus Music - if you posted a link to the Lenovo Forums, I apologize, but I don't think you did.   And if you feel dissed by me, you are way out of line for someone who did not read my posts very carefully and made negative assumptions about me.   As I said, I have moved the conversation to the Lenovo forums at the link above (sorry I don't have "exclusive" ability to post links yet).
 
I'm not angry at you or anyone (including the manufacturers), I'm just pointing out that we don't need to accept the current (lousy) state of affairs.   If we as DAW users don't say something to the manufacturers about our needs, we deserve the trash we get.   But it has NOTHING to do with theoretical technical limitations.  They can make awesome DAW hardware for us if we insist on it.  If we keep voting with our dollars for garbage, we'll keep getting it.   Whiners or stoics alike.
 
Now go make some music with that awesome DAW of yours!  ;-)

Kev999
It is also generally assumed that any professional specialist high-performance piece of software costing a few hundred dollars would not necessarily be expected to run a PC chosen at random. I realise that the LE version of Sonar is free, but it does have the same basic requirements as the full version.

It appears we are back to blaming the software instead of hardware.   More is definitely not better.  I will probably just use audacity if I need to record 44.1k stereo audio in the future.   Seems to work fine with my 'defective' hardware setup.  Not sure why Cakewalk's Sonar has such a problem with a vanilla mono recording setup.   Now that I think about it, I have never found Sonar that intuitive. 
 
But I still hope for a 'real time' OS someday. Apparently it will not be from Lenovo (my forum post drew zero interest).   But all it would take is one processor devoted to dumping bits on the hard drive.   The rest could be dedicated to GUI etc.  If a computer can do real time video processing, which is even more data bandwidth than audio-only, it should not be that big a deal on even the most modestly configured modern computer.
 
Thanks for an interesting discussion.
 
 

Cactus Music
Buy a MAc

(Rolls eyes -  and the 'buy a Mac' phrase is the last resort when people don't understand the real technical explanation of the problem)
 
Mac/PC arguments are not my cup of tea, but since you clearly asked for it:
 
1) If Macs had the best value to performance ratio as well as openness as Linux or Windows, I would.  Every time I have ever used a Mac I have found it subject to the same type of glitches as other operating systems (crashes etc) but due to the tightly integrated software/hardware business model Apple has, significantly more expensive for the same basic machine.
 
2) There are two types of people in the world.  People who have drunk the Apple OS Kool-Aid and love it, and those who have not and probably never will.  The latter is the majority and I am currently in the latter group (until Apple convinces me they are worth the money and they become less restrictive).
 
3) In the words of Spock, buying a new computer without good reason is illogical.  There is no technical reason to buy new hardware for each application and it is not productive as doing so would reward lazy software and hardware designers and vendors.   I politely choose not to do so. 
 
4) Nothing so simple as recording stereo 44.1k audio on a multiple gigahertz machine (with ANY software or hardware) should EVER require a more powerful computer than the most basic computer commonly available today.   Even the most lame software and hardware with a multiple CPU i3 should be able to record and edit lengthy clips of stereo audio with ease.  The fact that Roland Cakewalk has trouble (actually refuses to do so) even after off-loading all processing to an external USB audio card licensed under Roland-Cakewalk themselves seems to say more about Cakewalk-on-Windows than the underlying hardware.
 
5) Failure to appreciate the technical arguments I have made above does not in the least depreciate their truth, although I would be happy to hear technical explanations of the real problem.
 
 

Cactus Music
But the logo on the front is worth it! Every one can see you are so cool while you check up on your friends on facebook while riding the subway. 

:-)   Hehe... yeah, I suppose if I wanted to _look_ cool I would rather do FB or use a Mac than taking up drinking or ecstasy.     Fortunately, in America we can choose not to lower ourselves to that depth.   Sometimes I admit to wearing my Linux SuperUser  or Ubuntu T-shirts just to show off.