music creator 3 driver error

okay, i used to think i was decent at computers, but this is really making me think otherwise. it is listing 2 drivers with an error upon opening the program: Intel(r) Integrated Audio 1/2 and Intel(r) Integrated Audio. They are not in use by another program. the bit rate and sampling rate is set properly...16 and 44000 or.. 4400. (i've already tried the FAQs) now, with my laptop... upstairs (newer computer.. dell) the soundcard is obviously different and i managed to rig it somehow to record. but it records very quiet and sounds like crap. this computer is a sony vaio from like... 2000 or 99. it's old. it's been through a lot of re-programming due to bugs and stuff. right now my security program is mcafee. (just wondering if that program would use the driver?!... that doesn't make sense but i'm clueless) any ideas? i am so upset with this. i really just want to record beautiful music. i haven't had a computer for over a year and this is what i had to look forward to,... and now it's not working. HELP! if you can! :) thanks

<3 shannon

well the mme change didn't help. i'm starting to remember what i did to my laptop, however. i think i did something to the I/O buffer size? or the DMA buffers?

shannon - as Robo said, the onboard sound chip is not really suitable for recording. some might get some decent results out of it, most won't. most experience what you are describing - if you use MME driver mode and turn the latency all the way to the SAFE side, you might be able to record without popping and clicking, but you're going to experience latency problems that way. there's one other thing you might try which is NOT guarenteed to work, but might. Go to http://www.asio4all.com/ and download their driver, then change to driver mode ASIO in MC. you can also try changing some of the parameters in their software and that might help as well, but it might not.

bottom line is exactly as Robo said - the onboard sound card is not suited for recording and in order to really solve the problem you'll have to get a better sound interface. PCMCIA, FIREWIRE or USB 2.0 are what you need to look at for laptops.