Cannot Select Soundcard Input after switching Driver Mode

Hello all,

I seem to be having some problems with Sonar allowing me to select a sound card after switching from the default driver mode.  Here's my system information:

Windows 7 64 bit
Sonar 7 Producer edition
4 gb RAM
AMD dual-core 2.1ghz

The problem I have is that when I first install Sonar, the default driver mode is WDM.  If I just leave it like that, I can select my inputs on my track without a problem.  However, if I switch the driver mode (to any driver mode, not just one in particular) the soundcard shows up in the input list on my audio track, but it doesn't populate a submenu with inputs, as it typically would.

There are two factors that make this situation strange.  The first is, I can switch back to the original driver mode that Sonar was using upon install, and the problem persists.  It's like once the change has been made, my submenu for inputs is gone.  The other strange thing is I tried installing Sonar 3 on this machine as well, and it did the exact same thing.

Any thoughts?

Thanks for the quick reply.  Under Options/Audio, all of the appropriate inputs are checked off, so they should be available for selection.  Also, I've got only one audio interface for the time being (though I will have more in the future), but it doesn't have ASIO support with it, and I'm not using a 3rd party ASIO driver like ASIO4ALL.

Just as a side note, I did try installing ASIO4ALL and got the same results when switching the driver mode to ASIO:  The ASIO4ALL device showed up under the input selection in the track, but I could not specify L, R, or Stereo, as that menu did not populate.

kalaab,
I don't believe that you have answered the question about your soundcard:
 
What is it?
 
Built in soundcards have some severe limitations, and may not support any othe drivers besides WDM. (Why would you want to switch anyway?)
 
Brian

The option to select a driver type is there because different manufacturers of audio hardware provide a variety of drivers. Sometimes they may provide MME, WDM and or ASIO. One, two or sometimes even all versions.
 
So SONAR gives you the option to select different types. And then to enable whatever Inputs and Outputs that the driver makes available.

Another reason to choose a different type of driver is that one may perform better in one computer system than on another.

The standard driver for windows is WDM (Windows Driver Model) and when SONAR start it looks for them and installs them if available, enabling all the inputs and outputs that the driver makes available.

Many laptops don't have very good WDM drivers idf at all. If none they revert to an older model called MME. MultiMedia Extension. This is a very poor choice for anything other than playback as they don't provide low latency or efficient operatioin of the hardware.

ASIO4ALL is a wrapper fro an existing WDM driver and sometimes makes it work more efficiently. Its a well written program that can optimize an already existing driver and expose more optins for its control than the drivers own interface.
It then presents this driver to as an ASIO type which in turn potentially makes an old rubbish driver work much better and at lower latencies. Its a craps shoot that when it pays off is great and when it doesn't - well at least you're not any worse off.

Whatever the case SONAR cannot display drivers of a type not installed on your system. Where there are multiple devices and/or drivers SONAR by default lists and enables the first ones made available to it by the Windows Operating System.

On the subject opf ASIO - There is a basic limitation that only one ASIO driver can be active at a time and so this limits the system to using only one audio device enabled through ASIO at one time.

WDM drivers are the only ones that can compete for and show multiple hardware installations to SONAR. This creartes other problmes regarding synchronisation of sample rates between hardware devices. When the devices are form the same manufacturer there are often methods exposed in the driver for synchronising multiple sam devices within software as well as hardware sample clock synchronization.

Hmm. I was only going to write a few lines, and when you consider the depth of this work I've really only skimmed the surface. Hope I've answered a few questions.