Even though I am set up to default new projects to 24 bit depth and 48k sample rate, my system keeps setting up new projects at 16 bit. when I go into preferences/driver settings the audio bit depth says 24 but is greyed out.? I can't alter the settings there at all? below that it shows the asio panel button but it won't let me open the panel or adjust my buffer size for mixing latency. any Ideas gang?

ASIO driver bit depth is often fixed to a single value in the driver. The driver bit depth is not the bit depth shown in the Transport module. The transport module shows the Record Bit Depth set in Preferences > File > Audio Data.
 
The ASIO Panel button may not be able to launch your interface client software. It may be accessible in the notification area or you may need to launch it manually. I have it pinned to the task bar.

And you need to be in ASIO mode to open the ASIO panel. If you are in another driver mode you cannot access the panel. It sound like your somehow in another driver mode. 
Does the audio interface show as the Playback and Recording timing master? 

scook
ASIO driver bit depth is often fixed to a single value in the driver. The driver bit depth is not the bit depth shown in the Transport module. The transport module shows the Record Bit Depth set in Preferences > File > Audio Data.
 
The ASIO Panel button may not be able to launch your interface client software. It may be accessible in the notification area or you may need to launch it manually. I have it pinned to the task bar.

I went into preferences> file> audio data and I was able to select 24 bit. So thank you for that bit of info. where do I find the asio panel (outside of sonar) to launch it manually?

Cactus Music - I am in asio mode in Audio>playback and recording. though in audio>driver settings I can't adjust the buffer and the bit depth still appears grayed out too.

It depends on the hardware vendor. It should be in the documentation that came with the interface. The Presonus client software I used was in in the Windows menu and installed under the Presonus folder in "C:\Program Files." Rather than have the client run at startup, I pinned it to my task bar.

I will add, the SONAR ASIO Panel button would only work when the Presonus client was not already running. If the client was running, the button would do nothing. When the client was running, there was an icon in the notification area. Clicking the icon opened the client UI.

scook you are on as always bud... the control for that is in the presonus universal control. I was at a buffer of 512, I put it to 1024 (I do hardware monitoring theougj the board so latency is irrelevant really and I want to ease the strain during mixing by raising the buffer.... though in sonar preferences>audio> driver settings it still shows mixing latency set to fast:
buffers in playback queue: 2
effective latency at 48k stereo is 21.3 msec. (45.5 roundtrip)

Am I wrong in thinking these are 2 separate buffers? the one in universal control (seems to me anyway) would be effecting the recording latency of the board as an interface right? Mixing latency in sonar is something different and would pertain to how hard the computer needs to work so when you move a fader or tweak an eq plugin there is less lag in the audible result?

They are the same buffer. In the case of ASIO driver mode, the mixing latency section of SONAR simply reports how the ASIO client software (in the case Presonus Universal Control) is configured.

That's what I found weird... when I changed the one in Universal control, the one in sonar showed no change