Clipping question.. behaves differently between computers

Hey guys I was hoping you could help with this clipping issue...

Basically on my old computer, I had an M-Audio 192 Soundcard.. when I recorded vocals sometimes if I did a sudden loud the waveform would clip but sound absolutely fine on playback. Similarly I have a vocalist round who gets really close to the mic to get that distorted closed-off tone and for a technical called fry screaming (where you want the mic to distort and you emulate a scream so not to hurt your throat so much). I'd record this with no problem, even tho sometimes the waveform would clip it would sound fine.

My old computer died (motherboard blew) so I got a new one and put the same soundcard in from the old computer... same software, windows 7, same installation of Sonar 8....
But now when I record, if it clips even slightly the sound will buzz rendering that clipped bit unusable. Again with singing if a sudden loud note its buzzing.

I was wondering if there's any reason you can think they'd be a difference between computers and if any possible fixes?
I suppose the obvious one is getting a hardware compressor before the sound goes into the sound card so it never clips but shy of spending that money.. do you have any thoughts on the software side?

Thanks guys
Mike

For the clipping between 2 pc's check your pan laws and check all your gain stages thoroughly.

theres no problems can clip as much as you like

No you cant. Why are you clipping? there is no reason to be clipping. Lower your levels.
 
Clipping is bad, just like drugs are bad!
Cj

Thanks for the replies @bitflipper the mic goes into a standard mixer with a bit of gain then into computer. If I record with another program other than sonar like Sound Forge -- it records fine and sounds fine and can be imported into sonar. However if its straight recorded into Sonar, then it has the not so pleasant-ness sounds.

@CJ same settings on the mixer unless there's somewhere else in sonar this is defined.. yea clipping isn't good of course however for the fry-scream vox are recorded close to the mic and rely on the distortion (analogue distortion i guess) to give it the edge. I guess the long term fix is a compressor before it hits the mixer and distort after, but in the meantime...

If that was the problem, it wasnt clipping. You where hearing artifacts because of the driver configuration was wrong. Driver mode doesnt raise or lower your audio level.

Its simple to cure. Check all you gain stages and make sure nothnig is going over 0dB SPL, if it is actually clipping and not a driver issue