Need help understanding sound card buffer distortion problem

You may be experiencing latency caused by a device driver. Try downloading and running RATT and DPCLAT programs. More info here:

Ok, thanks. I've tried running DPC Latency Checker and it tells me the system should be running fine with no audio dropouts while I'm hearing numerous buffer type distortions (at least that's what they sound like to me). It's definitely worse with effects on at the same time as VSTi instruments. This is really driving me up the wall...

Right now it's looking like the culprit may be an ASUS BIOS utility called Cool n' Quiet, which supposedly intelligently scales CPU use up and down. I've read that some older versions of it are more trouble than they are worth, and after disabling it in my system I'm getting dramatically improved performance for all plug-ins in Tracktion 3. I'll have to keep testing, and test in Reaper, but for now I'm thinking this may be the main cause of the problem with buffer distortion. I don't think it was a sound card conflict, but was actually a case of maxing out the CPU, even though it should have had a lot of power to spare. Hopefully that will all go away with this utility off.