Help please! Strange audio spike pegging track meters (SOLVED)

So, I'm working on a mix, focusing on the drums. Adjusting levels, tweaking FX and so forth. When I stop the transport, after a few seconds, and it varies how many seconds, the snare track will suddenly spike completely into the red, sending a crack of noise into my monitors. It started with the hi hat, and now the snare is also doing it. Pow!

No idea what's causing it. Any ideas/thoughts? Sonar is just sitting there at an idle, the transport is completely stopped, and there will be this loud crack and the meter will completely peg all the way to red and stick there.

Afraid I'm going to damage my monitors, or that will my ears out if I'm in headphones. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

Hi. I can sometimes get this on my laptop, if I push it. It is an underpowered laptop, using WASAPI drivers for the internal sound card.
I have never experienced this on my studio pc, which uses an external Audio Interface (my signature).
Do you use ASIO drivers for your 2i4? Are the drivers up to date? Does this happen in every project? Do you have share drivers with other programs checked in Preferences (P), Audio, Playback and Recording? 
That is all I could think of now.
Sorry to say that I do not have any explanation as to why it happens. 
All the best.

Here's a follow up: My drums are all digital, either playing my Roland TKV-11, or finger-playing samples in Addictive Drum via a Novation Impulse 25. Safe to assume all those samples/sounds have already been sweetened by the the makers?

reginaldStjohn
I have had this problem and it has always come down to a pro-channel module. Usually happens if I have a console emulator in a track. Disabling or replacing it can sometimes fix it.
 
Are you using the pro-channel console emulators?

No. Steered away from the Pro-channel strip when I found out I could only work with a matchbook-size EQ interface (the big pop-out is in Platinum only).
 
I've got multiple plugins inserted in individual track FX bins: a transient shaper, compression, Waves H-EQ, Isotope Neutrino for kick, snare, hi-hat, cymbals. No toms in this cover of T. Petty's "A Face in the Crowd." Plus, a bunch of there plug-ins in various other tracks' FX bins.
 
Wouldn't doubt I'm crushing my over-matched CPU. The four bars in the "system resources" meter are all dancing. Seems I'll have to re-think how to best get a decent mix with limited CPU and RAM. Shared FX on busses will be my next avenue.
 

GregGraves
Bounce all the tracks with cpu-hogging effects to individual aux tracks.  Then archive the source track.  Use your aux tracks to mix.

Thanks for the suggestion... Is an aux track the same as a bus? I'm confused by the aux track/patch point routing procedure. 
 
I've frozen all the tracks I can. As I understand it, freezing is essentially a temporary "bounce in place" that reduces that tracks (and its FX bin) load on the CPU, basically creative a waveform locked with the FX of the track . Do I have that right? Does freezing achieve the same thing archiving would?

Aux tracks are a new feature I think implemented this year.  (?)  To use:
 
Solo one track or a group of tracks, and set their output to "new aux track" (its a choice in the drop down menu).  A new track labeled "Aux" gets inserted below the track(s) you are messing with.  Arm the aux track and record all the other tracks onto the aux.  Then archive the track(s) you just solo-ed. 
 
Example:  I had a 3 part harmony each doubled and panned hard LR (6 tracks).  Each track required its own compression, EQ, etc. to make it all gel. When I got it mixed like I wanted, I recorded all 6 tracks to an aux track, and archived all 6 of those tracks.  Now the doubled 3 part harmony is running off ONE stereo track with NO effects.  This freed up cpu, and is a lot quicker/simpler than freezing a bunch of tracks.

I saw this today on looped play. Seems like the cpu heats up then it starts... I can't hear my fan :( it use to never stop...

Well, I think maybe I solved it (so far, so good, at least). I was getting all sorts of "ghost in the machine" spikes, and audio dropouts, and the audio engine was stopping. 
 
I increased my record and playback buffers from 1024 to 2048 and things seem to be going okay so far...