Noises in playback/Acid Music Studio 7.0

[B. Bop]

I am using Sony Acid Music Studio 7.0 with a M-Audio Fast Track Pro USB converter and a Dell latitude D630 laptop computer. The problem is that I keep getting intermittent pops and buzzes in the playback. I don't think the the noises are in the recording as they do not always occur at the same place. I noted where the noises were on the beat scale and found that they don't occut at the same place when I playback. I tried adjusting the latency in the USB converter from the default of 128 all the way to 4096. At 4096 the noise was much worse. Also, I am playing back through the USB converter to my PA, buy I have the same problem when playing back directly through the internal computer speakers. Any Ideas.

[Cyclophenia]

could be a lot of things. Some of the obvious: disable any background applications and non relevant services. scan/defrag your drive. record to a separate drive, something with higher rpm/cache.

If it's a factory set up dell, you might just want to consider wiping the drive and installing a bare bones windoze. When i recieved my dell, although it was a business model(optiplex), it still came jam packed with about 500 useless things eating my ram and hard drive space, that I just said enough, and wiped it and started clean.

Now the only time i get clicks and pops is if i throttle my cpu with too many VSTi's/vst fx.

Sounds like the usb is hogging bandwidth maybe? have you tried a different usb port?

[B. Bop]

This computer has to double as my business computer so I can't wipe the drive. When I used Sony Acid Music Studio 6.0 on my desktop Dell Demsion E510 with the same M-Audio USB converter didn't have this issue. I will try another USB port as you suggested but I beginning to wonder if this model laptop is going to be able to run this software successfully.