Bub,  have you run the DPC Latency checker recently.  I was getting a similar type of problem when I  had a hard drive(actually 2  of them) going.  When  I ran the DPC  checker  I was getting intermittent spikes(at about 11 second intervals).  I received no error messages indicating there was a problem until they actually hit the total failure point.   I assume what was happening was that it would keep trying to read the same(bad spot) on the drive and this would result in a interruption in the audio stream.  See thread indicated below with a few more details on the problem.  I had changed power supply, fans etc. trying to solve. 

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2278683

I loaded a bunch of midi patterns and hit play and watched the DPC Latency Checker while I was online via my USB Wireless LAN adapter surfing the Forums here. It was barely above the bottom green line the whole time.

That might not be the whole explanation for your issue, but that's not a good sign. The green line is at 500us; above it is the yellow zone, meaning your system is marginally capable of delivering good audio streaming performance.


I don't know what your buffer is at, but a DPC latency above 500us is going to start pushing your CPU usage up in SONAR if your buffer is at 128 samples or less. Throw in the overhead of running at 96kHz, and it's not so surprising you start to see some high CPU numbers.


DPC latencies under 100 are more typical for a well-tuned DAW. Mine used to be there on XP, but jumped up to averaging around 150 with Win7. But some folks running Win7 with the right hardware, properly configured, are reporting DPC latencies under 20 or even in the single digits!


500+ microseconds is unacceptable for a modern machine with otherwise good specs, as far as I'm concerned.


There may well be something else going on between SONAR X1c and your DAW, but your DAW is not in a super happy place to begin with.

What I should do is run the DPC Latency checker with Guitar Rig. I will do that later and post back. I have to shut down and head out now.

Thanks.

Bub

Hey Bub,

since you've taken things back to a fresh install of Win7 and it's still the same, it may be worth
checking through all the BIOS settings, or even resetting the NVram. Some boards have
a procedure for actually performing some sort of a NVram reset like jumpering some pins,
rather than just a "Set BIOS defaults".

I have seen some really strange issues fixed by doing a full NVram/BIOS defaults reset, then
going through and setting up any non-defaults you need in the BIOS.

Considering what you've done alreay, I really can't think of anything else at the mo.

Cheers - Cliff

BubI just checked and I misspoke .... It's barely moving above the bottom white line.

Okay. That's more like it. Definitely something strange going on there with your CPU loading, but DPC isn't the problem.

@ JonD: BIOS power management is totally disabled and power management is set to High Performance plus I changed a couple of things to make it even better.

@Noel: Is there anything else in depth you can suggest? Should I contact support via the phone? Are we going to continue troubleshooting here? Not sure what to do at this point. I haven't used my DAW since this happened because Windows Task Manager is showing my CPU Usage at 50 ~ 60% and I don't like running it that high.

Keep me posted.

I have noticed a glitch in the piano roll when I have a midi track with a bass line and a few notes higher up. When I try to select some notes via clicking and dragging the mouse to create a selection box around some of the bass notes, some of my other notes higher up get selected. Not sure if this is due to the X1c update.