Cakewalk uses your computer  soundcard to delineate its inputs.  I am using the sound on my motherboard because it actually sounds good.  And is a pretty high quality card.  Look at the Sound Settings or anything that affects sound in Control Panel.  Make sure you set up your inputs from there.  ASIO4All  is ideal, but it may be easier to get it working in MME mode.  But you have to use the Control Panel programs for your input.  Sonar reads those.   As far as 8 Gigs it should work well as long as you don't have a ton of programs running in the background.  I have 12 on this machine and everything seems to run fine.  

In Preferences>Audio Data the Global Audio Folder points to C:\Cakewalk Projects\Audio Data. That is not what I use. I have all my audio data going to F:\ song name\Audio. Should these match? I checked, the location on C: is empty. Is this a possible conflict?
Also, in Device Manager, in Properties>Events for my audio drive that I installed, it says "Device not migrated". Is this cause for concern?

rodreb
In Preferences>Audio Data the Global Audio Folder points to C:\Cakewalk Projects\Audio Data. That is not what I use. I have all my audio data going to F:\ song name\Audio. Should these match? I checked, the location on C: is empty. Is this a possible conflict?

The Global Audio folder default is "C:\Cakewalk Projects\Audio Data." On startup, the program will actually reset the Global Audio folder to the default if the path provided is unreachable. This used to be a problem for those wanting to use a Global Audio on a removable drive. It is rarely an issue with internal drives. I like to have the Global Audio folder on the same drive as the active projects. Not sure if it matters any more. It is definitely not the cause of the problem described in the OP.
 

rodreb
Also, in Device Manager, in Properties>Events for my audio drive that I installed, it says "Device not migrated". Is this cause for concern?

Could be. There are a lot of hits on "Device not migrated" on Google. I will defer to Windows experts about the this error.

Thanks, scook. Any idea how to migrate the drive?

Do you still have the old machine available? When I loaded my new machine I actually launched SONAR on both so that I could walk the dog on each page in preferences. With all of the tweaks done over time, a new installation will lose them which is why a side-by-side comparison is easiest to verify.
 
I did catch one LatencyMon post (I think it was yours), which showed Automatic Network Discovery being on. Type "Manage Advanced Sharing Settings" in the Windows Search, and you will see "Network Discovery" under each section (Private, Guest or Public). Be sure to check "Turn off network discovery," which is a ping the system does every 3-4 seconds. That particular "feature" is the #1 latency issue IME - if you are adding things to the computer, manual is safer than having Windows trying to connect to everything it sees every 4 seconds of its life.
 
This item is not an easy task, and more for reference. Definitely start with Task Manager as mentioned above, but keep the following in mind. On a new machine, "Services" often need to be scrutinized. Unless something is required to run the machine, "Automatic" startup is not recommended. Most of these should show in the task manager; however, some are hidden and will only show up in Services (can type "Services" in the startup search). Right-clicking services that look odd and chaning startup type to "Manual" will force them to only launch when you launch them as a user. All of Adobe's services fall into this category, yet Adobe is also religious about resetting them to "Automatic" as well. All apps that have "automatic updates" or similar should be manual.

Another cause for your issue could be the
Firewire card and /or the chipset .
For example if you have a PCi (without e) card
(with  TI Chipset ?)
the newer mainboards don´t have original pci slots ,
this are reduced Pci - e Slots which are often causing issues.

Pragi - Mine is a Siig, PCIe firewire card with TI chipset.
mettelus - Yes, I do have the old system right beside the new one for the time being and am trying to duplicate most settings. I will try turning off the Network Discovery.
I am concerned about the "Device Not Migrated" thing in the Device Manager>Events tab for my audio hard drive. I just have no idea if that's a BAD bad thing or not. I've never seen that before. I tried to update the driver for that hard drive but, it say the one I have is the best for that device. I read somewhere that I should disable the drive then re-enable it to force Windows to re install the driver?? I get scared trying things that I know absolutely nothing about!! I don't know what the consequences may be.
 

It just dawned on me.... I replaced a 6 year old i5 with 8 gb RAM with a new i7 with 16 gb RAM and can basically see no difference in performance. Just doesn't seem right. 

@ Rod,
 hope you will get it fixed, but don´t have any idea how.
 
It´s also interesting for me cause one day in the future I
will have to look for a new box - hopefully with a configuration which allows me
to work with the Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 - love the sound of this  audio interface.
 

Pragi - Yes, I really like the Saffire Pro 40, too. Interestingly, everything works great with Studio One but, I just don't like the way it looks or feels compared to Cakewalk.
Also, these are all the same issues I had on my old computer. I thought it had to be the old computer (6 years old). Now I'm starting to question that. I assumed when I got this machine things would be greatly improved, performance-wise. Sadly, I've seen no noticeable difference.