Reaper+VISTA+FIREPOD= no or low sound

I have a problem...obviosly I have a Firepod and reaper on a vista laptop and I get no sound.... we got it weeded down to now we have low sound. BUT On our Win Xp system (with very little processing power for VST plugs) the volume is louder, much fuller, but the processing keeps crackling due to the intesive CPU clocking and latency. Any ideas? We have tried clean reinstalling reaper. thus we got a low volume issue now. ---------------- Now playing: via

What are you using as monitors and how do you have them plugged in??? (always need a COMPLETE hardware setup to diagnose..)

Just a thought, do you have the lastest driver for the Firepod? Could be the driver is not a Vista driver.