Honestly, I used to think it was my hardware until I plugged it into a professional comp and it was as quiet and smooth as silk I started out on an e machines and I would be surprised if I could get a hiss lower than my music with it. Some motherboards just aren't good for recording. The last thing I could imagine it to be is your hardware. I have also seen these problems fixed by getting a pci USB hub, it even cleared things up for me even more than it was, and it was pretty quiet to begin with. Oh, by the way, I was using Cakewalk and no software based from cakewalk was silent with my computer.
