I am wondering if someone could help me trouble shoot to understand whether my issues are caused by Sonar or my computer.  Right now, Sonar can hardly play a verse before it crashes causing me to restart my computer.  It has been this way since the last version of X2.  It is unusable and I have made no music since the last update.  My specs are:

Windows 7 home premium service pack 1
i7CPU with 16GB RAM, 2.6 GHz
64 bit

Could someone push me off in the right direction.  I don't want to have to learn a new DAW.  So I want to make sure that my set up is not the cause.

specs seem fine
what is your sound card/ hardware?

disable anti-virus?
disable wireless card?
check for irq conflicts?

did you try the troubleshooting suggestions in the users manual?

I was scared to go to X2 from X1 bacause of what i heard but i have been crashless in the first week.   Honestly, I'm loving X2.  My computer specs are very similar to yours.

it sounds like its probably a soundcard issue(im only guessing here)
because your computer seems to exceed the requirments.
what is your soundcard?

can you give me a little bit more info on this?

sorry to hear about this man,hopefully we will get you back to creating/loving music as soon as we can,hang in there buddy.

I'd start with running a full virus scan (not quick scan), the Windows 7 memory test, and scandisk on your C: drive. What soundcard? Crashes are often caused by bad soundcard drivers. I hope you don't have a SoundBlaster .

RAM is often the cause of instability.
Test your RAM to make sure all is well.

My sound card is the M-Audio 2496

Jim Roseberry


RAM is often the cause of instability.
Test your RAM to make sure all is well.

Someone here  taught me that the brand of RAM can matter too.


If it were me I'd find a DAW maker that consults and buy an hour of troubleshooting over the phone. I did that once and it simply solved my issue. Best < $100US I ever spent on my DAW. 

First step should be to submit a crash dump to CW for analysis. That will tell you what's instigating the crash, which is a pretty important thing to know before you start troubleshooting.

M-Audio 2496

munmun


I am wondering if someone could help me trouble shoot to understand whether my issues are caused by Sonar or my computer.  Right now, Sonar can hardly play a verse before it crashes causing me to restart my computer.  It has been this way since the last version of X2.  It is unusable and I have made no music since the last update.  My specs are:

Windows 7 home premium service pack 1
i7CPU with 16GB RAM, 2.6 GHz
64 bit

Could someone push me off in the right direction.  I don't want to have to learn a new DAW.  So I want to make sure that my set up is not the cause.

Sorry for your situation.

1.  What driver mode are you using in Sonar? (WDM, ASIO)


2.  What Sample Rate is specified in Sonar?  (Must match setting for interface)


3.  What ASIO Buffer size is specified for the audio interface?


4.  Are your motherboard device drivers up to date?  (chipset, audio, lan, etc.)  Note - I am not referring to doing any sort of BIOS update at this point in time.



5.  Assuming your Windows default audio is set to the M-Audio 2496, do tunes (wma, mp3) play OK outside of Sonar? 


6.  You only mention X2 - the X2a maintenance patch addresses something like 250 bugs and such.  If you have not applied the X2a patch, please make sure you apply it and then test again.  If you had done anything operationally to the X2 installation, you might consider removal and re-install of X2


I would suggest specifying ASIO as the driver mode, with a 44.1 Sample Rate and an ASIO Buffer Size of 128.  (It is a reasonable starting point, and some folks run at these settings)


It certainly sounds like there is some bad blood between the audio interface, Windows, and/or Sonar.  It appears that they have working drivers for Windows 7 x64, so it is more likely to be something like a Windows device driver or a motherboard update issue for the PCI slots.


I DO recommend that for diagnostic purposes you specifically temporarily disable any anti-virus software, making sure not to access the web until you turn it back on after finishing your Sonar session. (some number of folks leave the internet disconnected for long periods of time, only connecting once in a while to pick up any Windows updates or new Sonar versions and such.  I happen to leave mine connected all the time).
 
I wish I had a better idea of where to send you - the above is some grasping at the moment.


Bob Bone

How about downloading and running Rea*** and see if it runs and record ok on your computer ? 

This enables you to verify if it's your PC / Audio interface / drivers fault.