Many folks have latency issues with laptops, that are caused by the presence of a Wi-Fi adapter for the laptop to access the web. For some reason, many Wi-Fi adapters cause massive DPC Latency spikes, which cause all kinds of nasty dropouts and such in applications such as Sonar.
So, a real easy thing to do is to get the Wi-Fi adapter turned off, through some method, just prior to launching a Sonar session, testing with Sonar, closing Sonar, and then enabling the Wi-Fi adapter again to conclude the test.
Some laptops have a little actual switch, by which you can simply turn off the Wi-Fi adapter. This is the easiest method. Another way to do it is to go into Windows Device Manager, then find your Wi-Fi adapter and change its status to 'Disable'. (do not uninstall it, just disable it). Then after testing things in Sonar, go back into Device Manager and simply change the Wi-Fi adapter's status to 'Enable'.
So, please give the above a try and then post back on what happens when you play back or record in Sonar when the Wi-Fi adapter is disabled or turned off.
In addition, four other likely places to look for causes of latency in projects in Sonar are: settings, project plugins, audio interface, and/or use of on-board sound.
1. Settings: sometimes, settings can cause latency problems. Setting the ASIO Buffer Size too high OR too low can cause dropouts and such. For recording purposes, I have my ASIO Buffer Size set to 128, at 48k for a Sample Rate. When you switch into the Mixing phase of your project, you will likely start to use more powerful plugins and they will need a bigger ASIO Buffer Size to do their 'thing' (look-ahead processing and/or more CPU intensive). When I move to mixing a project, I bump my ASIO Buffer Size up to 1024. For the rest of time, you will go back in and switch ASIO Buffer Size to be either low for recording, or high for mixing/mastering.
2. Loaded Project Plugins. There are types of plugins that are just not meant to be used during tracking/recording, because of the nature of what they do. Cakewalk's Boost 11 is an example of one such plugin, as it uses 'look ahead processing' to read the data ahead of it, to know how it needs to process it. That look-ahead processing cause a big jump in latency, and this plugin should NOT be used until you begin the mixing process. There are others, from Cakewalk, and from 3rd-party companies.
You can quickly test to see if part of your latency issues are caused by one or more of the plugins that are loaded into a given project. Sonar X3 has a shortcut key, which is the letter 'E' on your computer keyboard, and when you press 'E' Sonar will toggle off/on all loaded plugins in the project - it will cause Sonar to 'Bypass All Plugins'. So, load up your problem project, start play, and hit 'E' to have Sonar bypass all the loaded plugins, and see if that also makes your dropouts go away. (after testing, hit 'E' again to tell Sonar to stop the Bypass, so you can hear the effects again).
So, IF your dropouts go away with the plugins bypassed, then you KNOW that one or more of your loaded plugins are causing the problem. MY advice is to temporarily swap out or remove any of the plugins you find to cause dropout issues when tracking, and then when you finish your actual recording, and move onto the mixing phase, THEN you can load up whatever plugins you wish, as long as you also remember to crank up the ASIO Buffer Size to give it enough room to DO things like look-ahead processing, etc...
3. Audio Interface - if you are not using one, you will continue to have lots of trouble with running Sonar with ANY real complexity or even number of tracks in projects. These range from about $140 - $lots, depending on features and quality of converters and such. If you DO have an audio interface, make sure you have the latest proven version of drivers and firmware available for the audio interface, and make sure those drivers are expected to work in whatever version of Windows you are running. Usually, the ASIO drivers are the ones you will want to use, though for some reason some folks on some interfaces use WDM drivers and report better success than with using ASIO. I believe that percentage of folks is likely pretty small, so I would suggest trying it with the ASIO drivers first.
4. On-Board Sound. Some folks have audio interfaces, but for some reason still have Sonar pointed to using the computer's on-board sound, rather than the drivers of the audio interface. I do not know why someone would do that - I do not suggest doing things this way. Some folks also report that they disable their computer's on-board sound. I do not myself have any issues with setting Windows to have the Default Audio Device set to go through my on-board sound, OR more likely to the speakers built into my HDTV that I use for a computer display (through the HDMI cable that connects my computer to the 32" HDTV). Some folks do as I do, and some others have separate computer speakers that the connect to the back of their computers - lots of ways of doing things. Bottom line is that I recommend having SONAR use the ASIO drivers of a dedicated audio interface.
If you have waded through all of the above, I suggest trying to run with settings similar to mine, which are:
ASIO Buffer Size: 128 for recording, and 1024 for mixing/mastering
Driver Mode in Sonar: ASIO
Sample Size (must match between Sonar and audio interface) either 44.1 k or 48 k (yes, I know some others run way higher - I just want to get this person stable first)
Bit Depth for Recording: 24-Bit
There are also a couple of buffers that changed from what they used to be in prior Sonar versions (used to be 500 ms or 512 ms), and now the default is 250 ms. I changed my buffers to 500 ms like they used to be
I hope the above helps, and that I haven't had any senior moments and forgot things. If I did, I am sorry. I DO need more coffee.
Best of luck with you, I will keep an eye out for any posts you respond with.
Bob Bone