recording

[cliphilis]

Please help! This is driving me nuts! I have been using Audacity for several years without issue. I lay down a drum track and play it back and everything is cool. When I record a second track while playing the first, everything sounds good while I'm recording. However, when I play it back, the second track is skipping and stuttering. I tried just hitting record with nothing plugged into the input and there is some kind of interference being recorded even though there is nothing plugged in!!! I have tried different versions of audacity and have the same problem. It use to work! I recorded several multi track demos in the past without issue. Is this a problem with my sound card? Why now? I have checked for software conflicts and there are none. I am using windows xp, service pack 2, ess alegro sound. I am at my wits end and need to get alot of work done on my new demo. Any thoughts?

[steve]

You probably have other stuff running on your computer that is reducing the performance of Audacity.
Disconnect from the internet and shut down all non-essential processes. Common culprits are Windows Update and anti-virus programs. Also, how much free disk space do you have? When was the last time you defragmented your hard drive?