Audio engine dropouts on new system

This is beyond frustrating 
 
Recently found the time an money to upgrade the studio computer (was a Core Duo, DDM2 laptop, now an i5, DDM3). On the old machine, no audio engine dropouts, though it was getting impossible to mix down a recording. I'll note the new machine is a virgin Win7 box, a clean install of Sonar X2 and all other recording software. All updates were made (OS and recording tools). Latest ASIO drivers for the Lexicon Omega.
 
On the new machine, I cannot playback 20 seconds without the %@&^@ audio engine dying.
 
I walked down the long laundry list of possible problems found at http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR%20X2&language=3&help=AudioPerformance.23.html#1123645. No success.
 
I also see no common problem source. Sometimes the disc load icon goes red, and sometimes it doesn't.
 
1) How can one isolate the actual cause of the audio engine dropout?
 
2) Aside from the list of potential causes on the aforementioned web page, what else might be causing a relatively robust machine to choke on a 10 track mix playback?

Microapp, many thanks. Quite an interesting tool. And vladasyn, yes I made changes and backed them out, testing everything that could.
 
So, things are better though LatencyMon still reports a borderline situation. Being an ex-mini mainframe fellow, I only dive into Windows innards when necessary, so I have a bit of a learning curve. Thanks to for the page to interpret LatencyMon, though I did not locate a concise description ... I'll have to dig through the thread some more.
 
The embarrasing admission is that I had notice noticed the "See Other" section of the Windows performance screen in Control Panel, where Microsoft had hidden the "Maximum Performance" option (why is it whenever MSFT tries to be slick, they make things for obtuse and difficult?). So, switching that over at least stopped massive dropouts.
 
LatencyMon reports the max latency was 21204 ms from USBPORT.SYS. This makes sense give the Lexicon Omega is the audio device in use. But in the driver page, USBPORT has a "highest execution time" of 0.33 ms, so I don't understand the main/driver divergence. The other red-zone element is the hard pagefault resolution time (14239 ms), and that was in an SVCHOST instance. I may play with buffers again now that the dropouts are somewhat tamed.
 
One problem I may have is finding the documentation for tuning the BIOS (AMI ver 0502) which I have yet to locate on the net -- anyone know where to grab the docs? Lots of options in the BIOS, few of which are above my paygrade.
 
Some other stats:
 
MEASURED INTERRUPT TO USER PROCESS LATENCIES
Highest measured interrupt to process latency (µs): 21204.283224
Average measured interrupt to process latency (µs): 6.084515 (assume not terrible?)
Highest measured interrupt to DPC latency (µs): 208.958061
Average measured interrupt to DPC latency (µs): 0.937431 (assume not terrible?)
 
DPC count (execution time <250 µs): 1437037
DPC count (execution time 250-500 µs): 0
DPC count (execution time 500-999 µs): 12
DPC count (execution time 1000-1999 µs): 0
DPC count (execution time 2000-3999 µs): 0
DPC count (execution time >=4000 µs): 0

What are the full specs of your Daw? This should be in your signature so we all can see it without asking you each time you may need assistance. 
 
See other peoples signature to get an idea.

TLW, thanks. No wi-fi, no parked CPUs, all power settings at 100%.
 
Jesse G, thanks for the protocol suggestion. I'll see if I can assemble enough data.
 
============
 
Sonar X2 producer, Windows 7 64-bit, i5 650 @ 3.2GHz, 8GB DDR3 @ 1333MHz, Intel HD Graphics, 
Lexicon Omega using ASIO driver, M-Audio Trigger Finger

have you tried going in to sonars preferences and selecting your asio driver, click on the settings to open up your audio interface asio settings. try playing with the buffer size. you may be to low for sonar to handle. hense the drop outs.

guyshomenet
I also see no common problem source. Sometimes the disc load icon goes red, and sometimes it doesn't.

Sounds like you may be having a disk-streaming issue as opposed to CPU load or DPC spikes.
 
Check disk usage in Windows Resource Monitor during playback; if it's running high, try increasing your disk output (playback) buffer in Preferences.
 
If disk usage is high, and there aren't a lot of audio tracks in the project you may need to check disk performance independent of SONAR or look for other causes like concurrent virus-scanning.

We can close this one out. Unsure what magic combinations of tweaks I did made the difference, but I appear to have tamed the beast.