hi as you will see from my posts im pretty clueless! right.. i purchased a h.p pentium 4 pc off a bloke on gumtree and within the first couple of days it started freezing so i had to turn it off and back on again ,this happened 7 times and  also it wouldnt run "reaper" properly (the graphics were basic) and not how it should look.. so  i told the bloke and he agreed 2 exchange it for a dell with pentium 4 but a few days later said he couldnt find fault with the h.p? i did run a demo of sonar x2 on the h.p it and if im not mistaken, wouldnt a pentium 4 be too slow to handle x2? could that of caused it to keep freezing? it happened when i wasnt even runnin x2 aswell? thats my first question . cheers 

right.. the dell he gave me seemed ok but after getting advise from sum good people on the forum i realised a pentium 4 was gona be a bit iffy running sonar 8 .. so i asked the bloke who seemed genuine enough if he would mind taking it back for a small profit and he could sell it on as he seems to use refurbishing p.cs as a 2nd income.. he seemed fine with that but next thing i got a text sayin he had found me a dual core lenova m70 e think center 2.80ghz which would be adequate for running sonar ..but obviously i would need 2 give him sum more money and give the dell tower back (but keep the samsung monitor and keyboard etc i originaly got with the h.p ).. i told him i was a bit skint and would just prefer the money back as agreed but he seemed to get a bit funny .. i wont get into details but yer a bit of tension was building.. i agreed to go with the deal and have the lenova dula core...

right , he told me to bring the samsung monitor , i didnt understand why but i trusted there was valid reason.. when i got there he had a differnt monitor set that he said was a better resolution or sumthing when i said i was happy with my original monitor he said it wouldnt be suitable and the lenova was too high spec for it !!?   the original monitor he gave me was a
Samsung SyncMaster 931BW and i dont think its very old so sureley it would of worked with the lenova? thats my first main question..?
right the monitor that he gave me is also a samsung and is playing up bigtime . i only got it a couple of days ago and its switchin itself off regulary (and completley off) the standby and power light go off and i have to click the on/off switch on the back to get it goin again.. if im lucky it stays on for 3o min but sumtimes its every 5 mins.. i contacted the bloke and he said thats normal with powersuite or sumthing !!?!  then when it got real bad and started happening more frequent i contacted him again and told him straight that this cant be normal and theres gota be sumthing wrong with the monitor and he just pretty much said i would need to get another monitor!!!  when i told him hes gota be jokin and ide payed for the p.c /monitor and extras he just started waflling about how hes done me a great favour and he lost 20quid just 2 get it from a mate cheaper and he has installed 64bit etc etc  and basically he wouldnt replace it or give me money to cover the monitor!  right before i go ranting and raving i need sum answers to the questions ive asked so then i can argue with facts 

personaly i think hes takin advantage of the fact im clueless and a  mate of mine whos worked at IBM for 30 years rekons any fairly modern monitor should work with the lenova and the guys lying  .. i think hes lied to me  and given me a monitor he knows is faulty and kept the decent 1 himself , a few things hes said just dont add up and i think hes taking the piss .. can anyone help please. sorry for the length but i wanna make sure im not ripped off.. cheers

please note ive hooked up the monitor to me mums p.c and its just switched off as i got to the end of writing this so it cant be the lenova at fault and must be the monitor?? 
  thanks again

1. A P4 is adequate to run SONAR, at least until you start building up very large projects. The CPU type will have no bearing on hangs (freezes).

2. The monitor resolution will only have a very minor impact on performance, and the monitor type should have no bearing at all.

3. There are a great many possible reasons for a PC freezing up. An overheating power supply or CPU, a faulty motherboard, a poorly-seated adapter card or RAM module, a buggy device driver. 

If your friend was unable to find a problem with the PC, and assuming he knows how to properly test a PC, it could be that the cause is some specific driver that he wasn't activating during his tests. 

If the hangs only occur while you're using SONAR, it could be the audio interface driver. In rare instances it could be a specific plugin. Test with a minimal SONAR project - no plugins and a single audio track. If it doesn't fail right away, let it loop for an hour or two to give the computer time to warm up.

Whatever the problem ultimately turns out to be, it will not be because you're using a Pentium 4 or a particular monitor or the screen resolution.

helo mate how u doin? i dint have any plugins mate i just litterly ran sonar x2 demo and also had reaper installed and that was it and i didnt even have an interface hooked up and it just froze 6/7 times in 48hrs and then i contacted him and he agreed to swap it for a dell but hes basically implying im the problem and he says hes since sold the h.p and had no complaints but to be honest i dont trust anything he says now... cheers mate

You'd do better to find someone local to you who builds DAWs. It won't cost a whole lot more, but you'll be guaranteed a working system optimized for audio. I'm guessing you're in the UK, and I'm not, but perhaps one of our Brit pals here can recommend a reputable source for you.

There are many to choose from in the UK

Quite honestly, I'd go for one of the bigger players in the industry - Digital Village are always worth a shout, as are inta-audio

A quick Google search will yield a good 20+ usable results, you can narrow it down from that point.

I disagree. A Pentium 4 is not fast enough to be used with Sonar. How much memory (RAM) is installed?

+1 Dave.  the P4 will sort of work but only if other components are up to snuff. A 7200 RPM HD and a min of 2 Gigs RAM. I bet with that machine the seller pulled the good RAM and put in 256MB  to make the thing boot. I bet the OS is pirated too.  I have a P4 Laptop that works only because it is optimized to the max. That said it only records audio,, It cannot handle much in the way of VST's or session drummer. 

ok cheers for the replies