Audio interface causing CPU to cycle up and down

Hi, I'm new to the forums so I hope this in the right place.

I recently bought a new laptop, an ACER 5742 i5 with 4GB ram and 500GB HD with Windows 7 64 bit Home premium. I've had a number of problems already, initially a problem with the in built soundcard drivers but that was resolved by rewinding to an earlier driver version.

I bought the laptop solely to record guitar based music with the DAW Reaper. My latest problem is since buying a new audio interface. I've previously recorded with the laptops inbuilt soundcard and the results were pretty good apart from some excessive noise. The new interface is a guitar rig session interface that also came with some guitar rig software, but I was primarily buying it for the interface.

However I've been having problems getting the latency and crackles/pops down to a low enough level for consistant recording. After monitoring the Real Time CPU monitor in Reaper I've noticed that the CPU is oscillating up and down periodically roughly every 25-30 seconds between 20% up to 60% in an almost sinusoidal pattern when the guitar rig interface is selected as the asio device. I've tried using both Native instruments' own Asio drivers as well as asio4all drivers as I did with the laptops soundcard originally but the problem still persists.

I've got some screenshots of the CPU cycling up and down but am unsure how to post them, so would be very grateful if anyone could help me out with this also.

I've used DPC checker and it doesn't show any latency spikes. Still however I'm getting constant crackles and pops with my latency settings at 15mS.

Since encountering my latest problem I installed sp1 as there was mention of a fix for high usb audio interface cpu use, however this has not helped.

If anyone could help with this I'd be extremely grateful as it's quite dissapointing after buying all this new gear that in its current state it's unusable Thanks

Thanks very much for reading, if anyone has any ideas about what the problem could be it'd be much appreciated!

cheers

(Note: I'm not very computer literate. I can find my way around most things but a lot of the more in depth stuff may go over my head . Thanks again)

I have a new Lenovo i5CPU with 6GB RAM that I bought for recording using Sonar 8.5.3 Producer Edition. I have an MAudio Fastrack Ultra 8R USB interface. I haven't done any recordings other than some test recordings with it, but I haven't had any problems doing the test recordings. I have a desktop that I primarily use for recording (with a Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 audio interface unit) and the laptop will only be used for "on site" recordings.

One issue, when recording disable any wireless (Wi Fi) interfaces as they are known to cause pops and other noise in audio. Same way with any Bluetooth.

Also, be sure to optimize your PC for recording. See THIS from Avid (Pro Tools) on Windows 7. It was made for their MAudio/Avid systems but really applies to any system.

Thanks for the input fireberd. I've already turned off the wireless since that was causing latency spikes in DPC latency checker every minute. I'll try some of the tips you provided in the link and will let you know how I get on. Thanks