Scratchy playback after upgrading my PC

check to make sure your onboard soundcard is not listed as either the PLAYBACK or RECORDING TIMING MASTER in the OPTIONS>AUDIO

another problem could be that you now have an IRQ conflict on the new machine.  those are very, very difficult to get rid of since they're not user changable.

you shouldn't be trying realtek or digital at all for playback or recording timing master, only one of the laylas.  and I'm not sure if they can sync that way or not, but that's a different situation anyway.

if you have the realtek disabled and have layla 1 for both playback and recording timing master, what happens?

to check to see if you have an IRQ conflict, go to MY COMPUTER, right click, choose MANAGE, choose DEVICE MANAGER, then click on VIEW>RESOURCES BY TYPE then click on IRQ.  see if your laylas share IRQ's with anything else (probably your video card).

possibly, but there's no sure way to tell without changing the IRQ's and that's not a user changable function in windows, so it's very, very difficult to do.

do you have a webcam or antivirus or wireless internet on this computer?

I know above you've said you tried using various latency settings and WDM and ASIO, but when you changed to ASIO did you change the latency settings AFTER you changed to ASIO?  what were your latency settings set to in ASIO mode?

why?  and "upgrading to ASIO" is not a valid statement.  WDM and ASIO are just different protocols for writing drivers.  when a soundcard manufacturer creates drivers, they write separate drivers for WDM, ASIO and MME (sometimes WASAPI or others as well).  you are choosing which driver to use in Sonar is all.  it's not really an "upgrade" - some manufacturers write better WDM drivers than ASIO drivers, it just depends on the manufacturer's software.

I don't know why it worked before and doesn't now.  I would think that your goal should be to get it working in THIS system regardless of what the old system did since you can't use that old system any more.

this is just my opinion on troubleshooting.  why worry about getting it back to the old way of working if a new way of working gets your goals of recording accomplished?

have you looked at the layla software?  there may be something in it that isn't set correctly to allow you to use both cards.  I've never used laylas nor have I tried to use multiple cards (without a clock sync system like wordclock or ADAT you can have sync problems using multiple cards).  but I would suspect that the layla software might have some settings in it that I'm not aware of that might be causing some of your problems as well.

well, maybe one more setting to try in sonar - try unchecking "use multiprocessor engine" in the OPTIONS>AUDIO>ADVANCED tab.  sonar 6 didn't handle multiprocessors efficiently in all systems.

and you've listed sonar home studio 6.2.2 - is that the latest update?  if not, make sure you've installed the latest update from cake.

I'd like to comment that not too long ago I read formal news of a virus that causes computer reboots..

Since you mention weird rebooting, if you need or wish-to investigate, maybe that could have something to do with your case.

sorry steve, if that didn't work, I think I'm out of ideas.  you might try the Sonar forum.  they'll tell you that you're in the wrong forum, but there's nothing specific to Sonar Home Studio causing your problem.  just remind them that SHS6 is almost exactly like Sonar 6 and the solution for this problem would be the same in either program.