Dropouts occur with Sonar 8.5.3 in the first 4 bars of a file for the first 3 playbacks

I just upgraded to a Dell M4500 with the extreme i7-940xm cpu from intel and Windows 7 64 bit.   The system is amazingly fast, but I am having a nuisance issue with dropouts.  When I playback a file, no matter how big or how much audio, or number of audio fx plugins,  and I will get the following situation almost every time using the ASIO protocol:
1. on the first play, it will stop after the first bar
2. on the second play, it will stop after the 4 th bar
3. on the third play, it will stop around the 6th bar
4. on the 4th play and succeeding plays, i get perfect playbacks every time (unless I reboot)
 
I am assuming it has something to do with buffering.  I have tried tweaking BIOS options (such as disabling speedstep and hyperthreading, etc), and it has no effect. I have tried different sample levels with ASIO, and the same thing occurs whether I use 256,128,64, or 32 samples.  I have also tried changing power settings, and optimizing Windows for performance to no avail.  I have also tried WDM protocol, but seems like I get better quality and more consistent audio with ASIO.
 
On one hand it is just a nuisance, since after the 4th play on any project I get perfect playback even at 32 samples.
 
Anyone have any ideas?   My next step is to potentially try to change the core parking parameters in the registry, although I am always nervous about making changes with RegEdit.
 
config:
Dell M4500 with Windows 7 64 bit
i7-940xm chip
8GB memory
Echo Indigo Digital Audio Sound Card
NVIDIA Quadro 1800m video card
Sonar 8.5.3

It happens on every project so far.  

Thanks for the advice! I have tried that, and it has no effect.   As a result, my next step is make the Registry edit to disable core parking in Windows 7, and see if that helps.