If you are certain that no new software had been installed right before the problem began, then you have to consider hardware. Start with disk drives. Make sure they've not reverted to PIO mode. Run a performance benchmark on them, which should reveal mechanical issues such as intermittent seek failures. Make sure the CPU isn't overheating (look at the heatsink; is it clogged with dust? is the CPU fan turning?) Verify that Windows is seeing all your RAM.

I did a latency check which said my system is fine for recording. I checked different usb ports. I checked the hardware, cpu fan, everything is running fine. Plenty of cpu usage left, plenty of ram etc.
 
I'm at the point now that besides recording i can't play along with 1 track anymore without audio drop outs.
So i mean i record the first track (guitar for example) and then play that back while playing (without recording) the drums. This results 100% in audio drop outs.
 
What else can i do besides buying a new computer (which would be insane) or buying new software from another company?

1. Have any drivers been updated since it was working properly?  Possibly automated driver downloads running in the background if you were connected to the internet recently?
2. I assume there's no virus protection running on this PC, correct?
3. When you say you've checked all the hardware and everything's running fine - does that mean you ran diagnostics and the result was ok, or have you also done performance monitoring and all are humming along with very low utilization?  (or both?)  If you haven't run diagnostics on your disks and RAM(especially your RAM), I'd highly recommend that.
4. Have you replaced your USB cable to your audio interface?  It would be odd if a cable were suddenly bad, but I've seen stranger things.
 
If all that fails, maybe your audio driver has become corrupt?  Have you tried reinstalling / updating your audio driver?
Hope that helps - if none of that works, let us know - maybe we can come up with other ideas.
Russ
 

Under power settings advanced usb make sure that sleep to save power is off. It is not called that, but that's what it means. Try power profile on full. If using Windows eight. .. Windows button X b and click the presentation button which should disable sleep stuff.

Could it be that for some reason you either have a sample rate mismatch between Sonar and your audio interface?
 
Also, could it be that for some reason you are running with a driver mode of WDM, rather than ASIO?
 
Or, if using ASIO, what is the current sample rate and ASIO Buffer Size set to>
 
And, in Sonar, what are the reported latencies showing, including the Total Round Trip?
 
Lastly, is it possible you are plugged into a USB 3 port, rather than USB 2?
 
Bob Bone
 

Did you tried to go to Windows' "Power Management" and switch it to "maximum performance"?

karma1959
1. Have any drivers been updated since it was working properly?  Possibly automated driver downloads running in the background if you were connected to the internet recently?
2. I assume there's no virus protection running on this PC, correct?
3. When you say you've checked all the hardware and everything's running fine - does that mean you ran diagnostics and the result was ok, or have you also done performance monitoring and all are humming along with very low utilization?  (or both?)  If you haven't run diagnostics on your disks and RAM(especially your RAM), I'd highly recommend that.
4. Have you replaced your USB cable to your audio interface?  It would be odd if a cable were suddenly bad, but I've seen stranger things.
 
If all that fails, maybe your audio driver has become corrupt?  Have you tried reinstalling / updating your audio driver?
Hope that helps - if none of that works, let us know - maybe we can come up with other ideas.
Russ
 

No updates. The computer isn't connected to the internet.
No virus protection.
I have run diagnostics. Everything is fine.
Haven't changed the cable. Will try it.

Jackdied
Did you tried to go to Windows' "Power Management" and switch it to "maximum performance"?

I tried several Windows options, pretty sure that i switched than on and off as well but will double check. Thanks.
 

robert_e_bone
Could it be that for some reason you either have a sample rate mismatch between Sonar and your audio interface?
 
Also, could it be that for some reason you are running with a driver mode of WDM, rather than ASIO?
 
Or, if using ASIO, what is the current sample rate and ASIO Buffer Size set to>
 
And, in Sonar, what are the reported latencies showing, including the Total Round Trip?
 
Lastly, is it possible you are plugged into a USB 3 port, rather than USB 2?
 
Bob Bone
 

1: No. Aiso
2: No
3 :Not near that computer atm but nothing weird or extreme with those settings. Tried everything anyway. 9 ms atm i believe.
4: No, usb 2

gswitz
Under power settings advanced usb make sure that sleep to save power is off. It is not called that, but that's what it means. Try power profile on full. If using Windows eight. .. Windows button X b and click the presentation button which should disable sleep stuff.

Will check that. Thanks.