Help connecting an interface

[moridor]

Hey guys, i'm pretty much just starting at home recording, but I have a problem and I don't really know what to do:

I've used the M-Audio Fast Track usb with sonar 6 and i've never had any big problems( i got a laptop, working with windows xp). The thing is, my friend just bought the same interface, but she has a normal desktop PC. She installed the drivers and was able to succesfully connect the interface, but when she played any audio (having deactivated the other sound controllers in the control panel) the sound starts to crack every few seconds. The other problem is, she got the sonar 6 too, but she isn't able to record anything. As I never had those problems, listening to music or trying to record with sonar, I don't really know what to do. I figure out it has to do with latency and also configurating the interface with sonar, but I don't know how to. I would reaaaaaaally appreciate ANY help with this, it's pretty anoying to have this interface and not be able to use it for my friend, so any comments, they will be appreciated. Thank you guys I know you can help me

[garww]

Work on the playback first. There might be processes that are interrupting you disk reads. Well, there are usually plenty of processes interrupting disk activity : )

[garww]

You can reference some threads in the Computer geeks sub-forum' Here's one link;
DAW optimizing tweaks

[moridor]

thanks garww, i'll check out that forum to see what i can do

[Tony Ramone]

Does your friends' desktop run under XP or Vista? That would be a big concern straight away...

[moridor]

My friend's desktop runs under XP. Also, I notice something the other night, when you're just listening to music, the audio aaaaaalmost doesn't crack at all, it starts doing it more as you use mozilla or messenger, so i guess it all has to do with processing. But now, how do i fix that?

[garww]

You have to choose what you want done. Audio can't be interrupted.

[moridor]

Alright, next time i'll try disabling some unwanted processes, i hope i don't mess anything up , i'll make a new post these days to tell you how it went. Thanks for your help.

[garww]

Ya, go easy if you have time. Windows is designed to dedicate ticks to the stuff that needs it. Not a big deal if you're working on a document. Audio is a streaming process.

There is a Indexing service deep in Administration that is a example of something that works in the background. Usually there are a host of programs that think it important to connect to the internet for some silly reason.

[moridor]

And what should i do if i want the pc working with everything it has PLUS the interface? should I amplify the ram or smth??