DavidA23
That's likely so but until I can get something out of this, investment in a new audio int. seems pointless.
Is there a way to completely re-install Sonar as I think I've broken it. The only sound I can get out it now after 2 days of frustrating preference editing is horrible white noise.

I understand your point completely, but the very fact that you ARE having problems AND you're using  the internal chip for audio kind of points the finger. 
Yes, many people have had success using the Soundblaster but this cannot be taken to mean EVERYONE will have success. Running Sonar on my laptop for instance is a complete no-no.

Thanks Bob. I did a thorough search and I'm pretty certain ASIO is not supported.
Greg. There's three sound drivers: Nvidia (from the video card), Conexant (motherboard) and SB X-fi Surround 5.1.
All but the X-fi are disabled.
Sonar has wave profiled the X-fi at least thirty times.
I do realize how complicated the software must be and I expected a steep learning curve but then I used to use Sonar 7 several years ago and that worked OK.
As far as the manual goes it would've helped enormously if I could see the pictures it refers to. They appear to be PNG's & although I can view PNGs elsewhere on my system they're just not visible in the manual. I'm betting that it was written on a Mac as I've noticed the problem before when Mac users have sent me PNG photos. I don't know what it is but I think the Mac does something odd when saving PNG files that makes them un-viewable on a Windows machine.
And music, yes I went through the bleeding fingers scenario years ago when learning guitar.
I just have this feeling that something went slightly screwy during Sonar's installation. Normally I would un-install and re-install in that situation but (& this is significant) there's no un-install file which means that Sonar doesn't appear in the 'un-install a program' list.
 
Thank you all for your help
 
David

Thanks Bristol. The odd thing is that in a few instances and after a lot of struggle, it sounds fine: playing midi files often works but now that I can access Studio Instruments (thanks to scook) they sound awful - a horrible burbling sound on top of the instrument.
I'm still looking to replace the Soundblaster but I'm trying to avoid a big outlay as this exercise is merely Hobby stuff.
Most audio interfaces come with balanced mike inputs and outputs which I don't need as I only intend to use soft synths, staff and keyboard controller.

Depending on your needs there are many very affordable solutions from the likes of Roland, Lexicon, Steinberg, IK Multimedia etc.

DavidA23 - try and get the pdf of the manual.  that should solve the png issue.
 
Did you try all the stuff here?
http://support.creative.com/kb/ShowArticle.aspx?sid=75459
 

David
 
The SI instruments are actually very nice.  They are more than capable of being used for "I only intend to use soft synths, staff and keyboard controller."  These should play as pristinely clean sounds.  It is unusual that you are getting 'burbling' sounds on top of the instruments.  Something is interfering with the sound, and it isn't necessarily Sonar.
 
While I can only guess at what 'burbling' sounds like, you may want to think about the path that sound has to take to get from the soft synth to your speakers.  It is quite possible that somewhere you have a setting that is causing problems for the sound signal.  Some common things that can happen to mess with the signal are:
 
1) having the sound loop back onto itself (like feedback?).  Do you have a feature on your sound card set to play the input on the output speakers?
 
2) There is a clock signal that keeps the timing for the sound signal synchronized.  You may what to check to see that in preferences, you have the audio timing master set to the same device you are outputting sound to.
 
3) you may be forcing bit depth and sample rate conversions while playing projects.  To prevent this, check that your device is set up in windows with the same bit depth and sample rate that your project settings and preferences are set to.  This one can be tricky because other applications may change the sound card settings on you without letting you know.
 
4) The output volume from one stage of the sound chain may be set so high that it is overloading another stage.  To see if this is happening, turn the track volume and the bus volume down and see if the sound cleans up.  Usually this is more clicking and popping sounds instead of 'burbling' though.
 
5)Your 'sound card' has features to 'improve the sound' like a loudness control, internal equalizer to 'optimize' your sound for movies, etc.  You will want to make sure that any of these features are disabled so that you are actually listening to the signal that you are producing.  Otherwise your signal will be 'perfected' by some software idiot who knows better than you what you should hear.
 
Sonar Artist will do what you are after.  Don't throw out the baby because you have one checkbox set wrong in a silly configuration box.
 
 
 
 

Cured!
In the last couple of days I have gone through my PC with a fine toothed comb. I have re-installed, cleaned up, reset, streamlined and generally give a good kicking to everything that might have caused my problems.
The result is that Sonar Artist now seems to be working fine - no distortion, nothing missing, no problems.
At present there seems to be less urgency to replace my SB X-fi hardware but I will anyway in the near future. I'm looking at either the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 or 4i4.
I would like thank you all for the help, suggestions and forbearance over the last week and phew! I can now get on with making music.
Thank you all
David

Nicely done David!