I am getting dropouts in SHS 6XL with only one softsynth playing back.  I have disabled onboard audio.  Using ASIO.  Networking off.  The track plays for a few seconds and then drops out.  Brand new i7 core machine.  Horsepower not a problem -- the CPU meters show reasonable activity.
 
I have searched on these forums and am surprised no one else seems to be using the TASCAM US-200 -- it seems a solid affordable sound option.  I dumped my EMU 0404 after years of dealing with its shortcomings but this is  Here is the strange thing: when I open the US-200 ASIO control panel, i can shift the latency around to five different levels (from high to low latency) and it does not seem to affect the buffer size (4.4 msec) in Cakewalk audio options.  Weird.  I figured maybe making the buffer size slower would help with dropouts but the slider is greyed out.
 
Anybody want to share their settings with the TASCAM USB?  Thanks!
cw
 

cwestmont
 when I open the US-200 ASIO control panel
cw
 

How are you opening the US-200 panel?

Hi Greg,
There are two different ways i have opened it.  One is clicking the ASIO button within Sonar-Options-Audio menu (I am not in front of my DAW at the moment so this is from recall) and the other is simply double-clicking the US-200 icon that was put on my desktop during the install.  Both bring up the same display, with the only 'control' variable that I can change is to set the latency.
 
After playing around with it for awhile, I found that changing the control panel to the longest latency did help with the dropouts (albeit not completely solving it) even though it did not change the 4.4msec indication in Cakewalk.  Unfortunately it also...made...playing...soft synths live...really...really...laggy. 
 
After spending more than a week attempting to get my new DAW up and running, I am throwing in the towel on this audio box because it is still within the no-questions-asked return window on Amazon.  I am going with a Focusrite 2i4 because it fits my I/O requirements and people on these forums and on Amazon seem to have success with it.  And it is in my budget range. 
Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 USB Audio Interface
 
Hopefully, this will work better. 
 
As an aside, I have been using computers heavily since the early 1980's.  There are times when it is so impressive how far we've come (WWW, tablets, low prices, etc.) and yet somehow it feels like the DAW experience is still in the hacker mode of approximately Windows 3.1.  The substance of these forums is evidence of that.  It really seems like it should be more user friendly than it is.  /rant