Tkrain


I may have been extreme in saying "no onboard sound cards"... I'll revise it to "none I've had"... My desktop sound card is so bad that Sonar Crashes if I load a single synth. My Notebook sound card can handle a few tracks, but since my DIs perform significantly better, it doesn't make any sense to me not to use them.

I chimed in only to point out that there tends to be a knee-jerk reaction around these parts to "non-pro" cards. The fact is there are many onboard chipsets and I can't confirm all are made equal, I'm sure they are not. For example, Realtek and Soundtech have always worked fine for me. I can't comment on VIA or others as I have no experience with them. But one can't always point the finger to the onboard sound as being the problem, I find mine to be very stable and functional. For example, I used an SB16 with Gigasampler for years, a product known to crush the drivers of many "pro-audio" cards, in realtime alongside Sonar 4 playing multiple tracks with multiple effects.

Just an update

I had success using my audio interface and disabling my soundcard.  I did a simple project with 5 audio tracks that tracked and played back without a hitch.  I then added Sonar native soft synths... I had true pianos, studio instruments bass, studio instruments strings, and 2 studio instruments drums.  No problems with the soft synths.

I have yet to try Session Drummer 3 or adding FX.  

I did delete my waves vst's.  So atleast I know that using native Sonar plugs works and that using my AI gives good stability.  I will let you all know if I am successful with native sonar fx (cakewalk and sonitus).  I think those should be fine.  I have a feeling there might a chance at getting SD3 working but I am not sure Sonar will handle the waves (noticed glitch and lag before).  

I'm happy to know that I can record with my laptop and have a medium sized project with no problems.  

I appreciate your troubleshooting tips and all you've all written.

Cheers!

I'm glad you're progressing.
But it's a little grim having to ditch the Waves plugins, isn't it?? That shouldn't be the case.They are supposed to be good and they sure aren't the cheapest (assuming you haven't used cracked versions, which might be the cause of the glitches). Or maybe there are known incompatibilities with Waves??? I don't know.

You did mention in your opening post that you're using mainly M-Audio Mobile Pre as your audio interface, but most answers stuck on you mentioning the integrated chip, which surely isn't the key to solution in this case (unless you inadvertedly had your integrated chip selected, even when you thought you're using M-Audio ??). Editing and auditioning SD drum loops in the box should be possible even with the integrated chip and MME.

I chimed in only to point out that there tends to be a knee-jerk reaction around these parts to "non-pro" cards. The fact is there are many onboard chipsets and I can't confirm all are made equal, I'm sure they are not. For example, Realtek and Soundtech have always worked fine for me. I can't comment on VIA or others as I have no experience with them. But one can't always point the finger to the onboard sound as being the problem, I find mine to be very stable and functional. For example, I used an SB16 with Gigasampler for years, a product known to crush the drivers of many "pro-audio" cards, in realtime alongside Sonar 4 playing multiple tracks with multiple effects.

 
Actually... my desktop uses the Realtek sound chipset.  The laptop uses Conexant...  What I can't seem to find for either are where they fall in Realtek or Conexant's lineup... i.e. are they their high end or their low end.  I'm guessing low, since my system comes with an NVIDIA card that is like the bottom of the barrel.  Life on a budget. :)  That cold be part of my own issues... I can't afford a high end system.    So in general for me... I never see a sound card that can handle what I need to do.  The difference between my onboards and my DIs is night and day.  In any event, this appears to be the solution for the poster.

I use ASIO4all with my on board Realtek,on my dell xps L502x,and I must say that this laptop,is nowhere near as stable as my parts picked desktop,which STILL,hasn't done a single weird thing since October,and thats with it Overclocked to 4.6GHz,with stock voltages!

Laptops by definition,just don't seem to be as stable,especially with cpu intensive Daw programs.....ANY Daw!

Don't despair though,as I have eventually got to know my laptop's weaknesses,and strengths,and problems now are pretty rare.

Obvious things are,"High Performance Power PLan",Non invasive anti virus[Microsoft Security Essentials]Experimenting between setting the system for either "Background" or "Programs"under System Properties/Performance Options,for example I was told to always set it to "Programs",but I get more stability with "Background",as all audio,is considered "Background".

Another thing is "i5" cpu's don't have "hyper threading",and Sonar is one Daw,that makes full use of extra threads/cores,so you could be overtaxing your cpu,at times without realising.

Lastly,and this is based on rumour more than fact,but I haven't heard great things about VAIO laptops as Daws,but that's a bit of a "grain of salt" deal IMO.

Also make sure your Hard Drive is 7,200 rpm,and not 5,400,as this effects performance,and lastly or more importantly is DPC latency,which can be checked with this http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml If its too high,poor performance can result,but there are ways of helping it.


Good Luck
Bob