Audacity Forum

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?

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?