Help me please with pops and hissing

 Hello everyone, I would love some help on what I believe is a software issue: popping and clicking and glitching and silence when I try to record with my MIDI instrument and microphone.  It worked well on my old machine but is giving me more trouble recently.
 
I am using
Windows XP with 4 Gig (or maybe 8) of RAM
Cakewalk Project 5 Version 2
Audiophile 2496
Keyboard with MIDI
Art Vista’s Virtual Grand Piano (I LOVE this piano sound) (uses kontact sampler player)
 
When I try to set up my soundcard, there are many options to choose from, and then in the audio area of the Project 5 there are options again.  Frankly all these options confuse me.
 
I paid a guy $50 to help me with this, and unfortunately it still doesn’t work well.
 
I have tried updating drivers and I believe everything is as up to date as possible.
 
I would buy whatever hardware necessary to make this work, but I feel confident that it should work well on this current computer because it was working better on an older computer.  I then migrated the soundcard and software hoping to get an improvement, and instead I have gotten a lot of hit and miss.
 
Thanks in advance for any help or advice anyone can give.

Sam

Mr. Bone!  Thank you SO MUCH for trying to help me.  Unfortunately music is a hobby I really love but only get a chance to look at it every 2-3 weeks so it took me a while to see your post but that doesn't mean I'm any less excited!
 
I took some screen shots to try to help you/us out.  I also tried just now to use the ASIO driver by going into control panel and setting the Audiophile 2496 to ASIO and then going into Project 5 and setting it also to ASIO.  When I did this, I could hear the noise VERY faintly through my headphones.  Not well at all; perhaps 1/20 how loud it should be.
 
Attached are some screen grabs that I hope are helpful.
 
I'm also a little confused about the difference between settings in Control Panel - > Audiophile 2496 and the settings that I put in on Project 5.  Do they have to match?  Does it matter which I change first?  Do I need to restart the computer?  Would I have a lot less headache and things go smoother if I just bought a new soundcard? (I'm willing to!).  What does the "profiler" do?  (Because all it ever does is give me errors!).
 
Thanks again SO MUCH for your help, I really really appreciate it...

Sam
 
 

Also, do you have WiFi enabled?  Sometimes that can cause dropouts and glitches.  If you do, try disabling it.

Pops and clicks might be said to be related to software if you are getting dropouts. They might be clipping, or cuts made off zero crossings or a bunch of other issues as well. Hissing is more likely in the analog realm. 

Wi-Fi is a known cause of pops and clicks.  There can be other causes and that can be harder to isolate, but Wi-Fi is definitely one.