Audio drop outs - making recording impossible

I didn't have these drop outs before...now it just seems to get worse every day.
First they it happened what seems randomly. Then it started happening everytime i played a new track when i already recorded 1 or 2 tracks and now i can't record ONE track anymore without the audio engine quitting on me.
I tried the obvious things already but nothing seems to work.
And you also can't tell me my computer doesn't have enough resources.
Any suggestions? I don't know what to do anymore. I can't record even 20 seconds of music...

Dan gave you real good advice.
 
If that doesn't get any results, call support.

Hey, thanks!
 
I will try a different usb port but i never changed it in the first place so i don't really see how that suddenly could become a problem.
And other than a keyboard i don't use any usb hardware.
 
Bitflipper, i have no network enabled. This is a studio computer only.

1/3 or so.

Audio, midi...i have tried all kinds of combinations and leaving out plugins and fx's etc. It doesn't matter. As soon as i start recording (just a guitar for example) the audio engine stops working.
Haven't checked the latency software yet. The usb thing doesn't seem to solve the problem.

If you are certain that no new software had been installed right before the problem began, then you have to consider hardware. Start with disk drives. Make sure they've not reverted to PIO mode. Run a performance benchmark on them, which should reveal mechanical issues such as intermittent seek failures. Make sure the CPU isn't overheating (look at the heatsink; is it clogged with dust? is the CPU fan turning?) Verify that Windows is seeing all your RAM.

1. Have any drivers been updated since it was working properly?  Possibly automated driver downloads running in the background if you were connected to the internet recently?
2. I assume there's no virus protection running on this PC, correct?
3. When you say you've checked all the hardware and everything's running fine - does that mean you ran diagnostics and the result was ok, or have you also done performance monitoring and all are humming along with very low utilization?  (or both?)  If you haven't run diagnostics on your disks and RAM(especially your RAM), I'd highly recommend that.
4. Have you replaced your USB cable to your audio interface?  It would be odd if a cable were suddenly bad, but I've seen stranger things.
 
If all that fails, maybe your audio driver has become corrupt?  Have you tried reinstalling / updating your audio driver?
Hope that helps - if none of that works, let us know - maybe we can come up with other ideas.
Russ
 

Could it be that for some reason you either have a sample rate mismatch between Sonar and your audio interface?
 
Also, could it be that for some reason you are running with a driver mode of WDM, rather than ASIO?
 
Or, if using ASIO, what is the current sample rate and ASIO Buffer Size set to>
 
And, in Sonar, what are the reported latencies showing, including the Total Round Trip?
 
Lastly, is it possible you are plugged into a USB 3 port, rather than USB 2?
 
Bob Bone
 

karma1959
1. Have any drivers been updated since it was working properly?  Possibly automated driver downloads running in the background if you were connected to the internet recently?
2. I assume there's no virus protection running on this PC, correct?
3. When you say you've checked all the hardware and everything's running fine - does that mean you ran diagnostics and the result was ok, or have you also done performance monitoring and all are humming along with very low utilization?  (or both?)  If you haven't run diagnostics on your disks and RAM(especially your RAM), I'd highly recommend that.
4. Have you replaced your USB cable to your audio interface?  It would be odd if a cable were suddenly bad, but I've seen stranger things.
 
If all that fails, maybe your audio driver has become corrupt?  Have you tried reinstalling / updating your audio driver?
Hope that helps - if none of that works, let us know - maybe we can come up with other ideas.
Russ
 

No updates. The computer isn't connected to the internet.
No virus protection.
I have run diagnostics. Everything is fine.
Haven't changed the cable. Will try it.

robert_e_bone
Could it be that for some reason you either have a sample rate mismatch between Sonar and your audio interface?
 
Also, could it be that for some reason you are running with a driver mode of WDM, rather than ASIO?
 
Or, if using ASIO, what is the current sample rate and ASIO Buffer Size set to>
 
And, in Sonar, what are the reported latencies showing, including the Total Round Trip?
 
Lastly, is it possible you are plugged into a USB 3 port, rather than USB 2?
 
Bob Bone
 

1: No. Aiso
2: No
3 :Not near that computer atm but nothing weird or extreme with those settings. Tried everything anyway. 9 ms atm i believe.
4: No, usb 2

Could it be that your computer is either possessed or having an allergic reaction to some music genre?
 
I cannot for the life of me think of what to have you check.  My brain will keep stewing on this and I will try to think of something better than my idiotic comment at the top of my post.
 
You are sure you are not filling up on the SSD?  Not full, but I am dimly aware of some threshold where they start becoming a bit slower.
 
Perhaps some massive fragmentation issue is present?
 
Dropouts seem to be caused by things like settings, background services/applications, antivirus software, device drivers, disk throughput, lack of available resources, and occasionally hardware.
 
Most of that seems to have been checked, per the numerous threads/responses above.
 
Hang in there - something is causing it, and sooner or later either you or one of us will figure it out.
 
Bob Bone
 

If its on, try and disable the "Vista only" setting in the audio properties. I'm not in front of my DAW, so I can't tell you what it's exactly called. But I know it's for enabling MMCSS thread priorities. I know you're supposed to be able to leave it on for Win7, but my machine gave me fits (and I have the exact same CPU) whenever I tried recording audio until I turned that off.

Did you check your ASIO buffer (Preferences | Drivers | ASIO Panel)?  If not, try setting it to a high value like 1024 (which would probably be 8 on the slider).

What other drives are you using?
 
You mention an SSD - what's the capacity & what other drives are you using?
 
Just a shot in the dark - have you cleared out your picture cache recently?