I would gladly pay $20 via PayPal to anyone who can cure this problem for me. First of all, the extent of my knowledge for Sonar LE is: plug in microphone, click record, file >export. Please dumb down answer for me.

I do voice recording for Youtube videos with a Samson C03u USB microphone. When it is working properly for recording in Sonar LE, I hear this sound when I am not speaking into the microphone:

http://soundcloud.com/webshare101/nohiss

However, somehow magically, without touching anything, now when I do recordings it makes this sound when I record without speaking:

http://soundcloud.com/webshare101/hiss

I have always had the actual microphone set to -10dB.

My question is why it's doing this and what I can do to fix it. I need to post videos on a regular basis and this has stopped me in my tracks. I have attached a screenshot to this message of what it looks like when I'm recording.

I feel extremely helpless as it is a specific question and I can't find an answer, especially with my lack of recording knowledge. Please I will gladly pay.

Thank you

could be a few things, you'll notice there is settings on the mic itself that you might have changed.
OR things in windows "recording" like the gain / volume.

from the pic , the recording is very low volume wise.. look at the top sticky I made ages ago, notice the levels / wave forms are far higher volume wise. 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=1618556


depends what mode you are recording in also, or attempting to. 

Fog is the expert on the USB mic issues...... he put that sticky together a few years back and I refer people to it....

However, I also recommend that if you are interested in recording as a hobby, and are willing to invest a bit of money in it, you can get satisfaction with a dedicated USB connected interface..... while it is USB like the mic.... it becomes your main soundcard, not an additional soundcard like the mic does. 

Try the advice that Fog gave you first.