Dropouts and Audio Driver Failures

Ok, I'm stuck. I've tried looking up what could be wrong and I've done everything that various potential solutions have told me to do. What happens is that my projects crash whenever I have more than one track running. Specifically, I have 12 tracks (including one midi track on a software instrument running Superior Drummer 2), and if I can get more than 2 minutes of uninterrupted play, it's a miracle.
 
I'm running a mid-to-high end gaming rig.
I am using third-party plug-ins (Guitar Rig 4, Superior Drummer 2.0, EZMix 2 Lite) that have worked absolutely fine in Reaper and an m-audio fasttrack pro.
I have a 3.6 GHz 6-core AMD FX3+ Processor with a 8MB Cache.
8GB of DDR3 RAM @ 2300 MHz
223 GB Kingston SSD
Soundcard is onboard Realtek with current driver.
 
I have gone from nearly no buffer, all the way to max buffer without any difference. I have nothing else running but necessary apps for recording (Steam, as I purchased Sonar on Steam, M-Audio interface, Midi interface). It starts off with some granular distortion, then the CPU indicator shows that all six cores are getting taxed like nothing I've ever seen and either I can pause playback fast enough that it stops and I can play my song for a couple minutes before it happens again, OR it completely locks up and the audio-driver fails.

I'm really at a loss here. Is there hardware upgrades needed? I'm honestly out of options. Maybe there's a setting that I've missed. I'm pretty familiar with DAW's and all that on Mac, where it's just a matter of turning it on and hitting record, but the amount of software interaction on the PC is a lot more complex, so I very well could have missed something. I'm looking for any kind of help here.

If I got it right that you are using your on-board sound as your audio interface, then I believe that will likely be an issue for doing any heavy 'lifting' with Sonar.
 
You could try ASIO4ALL, if the above is correct.  Some folks report ASIO4ALL working well enough for some Sonar projects.  ASIO4ALL is freeware that masquerades as ASIO, while being essentially an ASIO 'wrapper' around WDM drivers, if memory serves.
 
Ideally, you will want to pick up some flavor of dedicated, purpose-built audio interface, which run from around $150 on up to a LOT.
 
If instead, I got it wrong, and in reality you are using the M-Audio FastTrack Pro on this system, then I have some more research to do.
 
Bob Bone
 

Hi Steve
 
You don't need to try ASIO4All (in fact you really shouldn't), as you have now confirmed you are not using your internal sound card (check again what Bob said).... Thanks...

are you using any other usb instrument such as a keyboard via usb port that has a digital interface onboard--in other words, is it possible your computer is trying to read 2 interfaces? Have you disabled the onboard sound (realtec etc.)?

Just a side note to your issues - I used to use a laptop for gigging, and had tremendous latency caused by the Wi-Fi transceiver.  I had to disable it prior to streaming sounds live or I had horrific dropouts and crackles and such.  (kind of sounded like my ex-wife talking to me).  :)
 
Just for testing purposes, can you do the following?
 
1.  Download DPC Latency Checker (If on Windows 7), or LatencyMon (for either Win 7/8) and run WITHOUT Sonar running.  This will get a baseline on your system's ability to stream audio.
2  Go into Device Manager and temporarily disable your Wi-Fi transceiver device.  Don't uninstall it, just disable it.
3.  Run DPC latency Checker or LatencyMon again without Sonar running, to measure the difference having your Wi-Fi disabled makes to your system.
4.  Post back the results of your testing.
 
Also, Alex is correct - since you are using your M-Audio audio interface, do NOT install ASIO4ALL.  I had only asked about it because it wasn't quite clear from your initial post if you were actually using the M-Audio interface on this system, or if it was depending on your on-board sound.
 
Bob Bone
 

So it turns out that while my software driver had updated for the Fast Track, the firmware did not. I did a repair of the driver install, which in-turn, did the firmware update that it had missed when I first installed the latest driver (don't know why this didn't happen, which is why I didn't even think to look at the firmware). The firmware was only 32 bit, while everything else was 64 bit. Which is why things were going wonky, I'm assuming.
 
Just ran everything smoothly. No dropouts, not even a single spike in latency whatsoever.
 
I think the problem is fixed, I'm going to try reducing my latency settings now and see if i can get back down to low latency mode for recording.
 
Just want to thank all of you for the suggestions and help, it saved me from having to try and fight with logic on my ancient macbook.