Pops & clicks with Sonar 3 / e-mu 0404 usb / Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop

[bricorre]

RANDOM CLICKS & POPS
Items in Question:
Cakewalk, Sonar 3 Producer, E-Mu 0404 USB, Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop.
Songs contain midi tracks only at this time, made using the Edirol that
comes with Sonar.
Most songs contain tracks for, drums, bass guitar, piano and/or organ,
& somtimes a string and/or horn section.
The Edirols output track is "audio" and has its own audio track.
Songs were created using the same Sonar 3 on my Desktop computer,
using Echo Layla sound card, & stored on a WD 350 gig external drive,
to be later used with the Dell laptop & E-Mu 0404.

I take the external hard drive & plug it into my Dell laptop, which also
has Sonar 3 Producer, and the E-mu 0404.
The idea is to make everything done on "desktop Sonar tracks" portable
on a laptop, so I can be able to play along with the tracks in a live situation.
When a song plays I begin to hear pops & clicks & sometimes a "graininess"
in the sound.
It seems as if when a section of the song contains additional tracks
(like strings coming in during a chorus) that I can count on the glitches
to happen more so, and they happen at random (as opposed to the same
"spot" or "timeframe #" in the song).

I appreciate any help you may have to offer.
Below is a list of what I have tried so far.

Thank you,
Brian Correll
bricorrell@yahoo.com

COMPUTER INFO:
Model: Dell Inspiron 5100 (laptop)
Mainboard: Dell Computer Corp. Unspecified
Chipset: Intel i845PE
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 @2400 mhz
Memory: 1024mb (2x512 DDR-SDRAM
Video Card: ATI Technologies Inc. Radeon Mobility M7 LW
Hard Disk: IBM-DJSA-220 (20GB) (laptop internal hard drive- "C") ...This drive
for Programs & software only.
Hard Disk: WD (320 GB) (external drive - "E") ...Songs stored on this drive
DVD ROM Drive: QSI CDRW/DVD SBW-242
Network Card: Broadcom Corp BCM440x 10/100 Integrated Earthnet Controller
Network Card: Broadcom Corp BCM4306(??) 802.11g Wireless NIC
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition 5.01.2600 Service Pack 3
Direct X: Version 9.0c (Mar. 2006)

HAVE TRIED SO FAR (not in order):

Defrag hard drive C.

Defrag hard drive E.

Screensaver turned off.

Removing all midi effects in song (reverb & chorus).

Disabled Laptop internal sound card.

Removing allmost all other programs.

Turned off firewall.

Unplugged from internet.

Bought new cords for E-MU audio out.

Monitored audio with E-Mu headphone output & headphones.

Check all cords and connections.

Tried WDM drivers & all settings extensivly, random pops & clicks.

Tried ASIO drivers, dont play at 24 bit, 16 bit horrible dropout & dist.

Tried MME drivers, same problem as WDM.

Downloaded Asio4all drivers & installed

Stay with the WDM driver...seem like the best one.

Ran wave profiler dozens of times.

Went to Options/Audio and have done every combination of settings I could come up with.

Re-save song, then load again.

Optimized ext hard drive E (containing songs) for "performance" by turning off "cashe".

Ran E-Mu direct to power amp (eliminate mixer & rack gear & cords).

Made sure all cords were not near any tranformers, RF, etc.

Unplugged power supply from laptop & ran laptop on its battery.

Perform CHKDSK on drive C.

Re-install E-Mu audio drivers. Firmware Ver. 4.03

Downloaded & installed E-mu update Firmware Ver. 8.04


AS OF 3-15-09 :

tried switching to Sonars GM synth. No luck, went back to GS