Audio in Sonar 4 but none in Project 5 2.5

When I run Sonar 4 Studio Edition, I can hear everything just fine.
If I rewire Project 5 into Sonar 4, I can hear everything just fine.
If I run Project 5 all by itself, I have no audio.

History:
I purchased a PCR-800 last weekend to take advantage of ACT controllers
I installed the Dimension LE that came with it and that worked fine.
I installed Sonar LE (Hoping it would have ACT, No ACT) but it worked fine.
I installed Project 5 LE and that worked just fine.
Since P5 didn't have ACT, I decided to do the P5 2.5 download for $50

After installing / upgrading Project 5 to 2.5.
I got sound at first because it was using Direct Sound, but the latency was really, really really bad and made it unuseable.
So I switched to ASIO drivers and then there was silence. With all volumes cranked, I could sort of hear very faintly some sound.
So I switched to WDM drivers, and still no sound.

At this point I was using the Focusrite Saffire.

I completely removed that from my computer and enabled the M-Audio 2496.
Uninstalled Sonar LE, Project 2.5, Project 5 Le
Rebooted several times.

Ran the VST Plug in manager and removed all the demo plugins from that I had on my PC from the trial versions of P5 and Sonar 6 Web trial versions.

I rebooted.

I reinstalled P5 2.5

I tried it and still no sound.

My sound test is to load the TTS-1 plugin in and click on the note icon (audio preview) in track 1.
Sometimes I get the green meter bars indicating that sound is being generated, other times nothing.
But no matter what I did, no matter what drivers I use (At this point I'm back to M-Audio 2496) there is no audio coming through.

I now load up Sonar 4, insert the TTS-1 and voila, I can hear the audio preview!

Tried everything that I can think of in terms of different drivers (ASIO, Direct Sound, WDM)
Have disabled on board audio (Sigmatel???)
Have disabled Skype phone that runs off USB.
Have completely disconnected the Saffire interface.

I have Dell Pentium 920D,
I use M-Audio 2496 with its Asio drivers
I also tried getting sound by using FocusRite Saffire

Bottom line:
Audio works just fine with Sonar 4
Audio works just fine with Sonar 4 & Project Rewired
No Audio in Project standalone!

Does anybody have any ideas?

i notice you said 2.5. it wont fix your problem, but download the 2.51 maintenance update for at least more stability in the future

I think this thread sets a record for the amount of information provided in relation to the perennial 'no sound/change the justification' issue

it will take a lot to top this, if we still had those weekly/monthly awards, I'd vote to provide one to RobertBlomberg

for meticulous issue reporting
congratulations