US-122, gigastudio, and hyper-threading

[daveb74]

Total newbie here, so I'll probably have tons of questions, but here's my situation for starters.

I'm a drummer, but mainly interested in recording guitar-based demos for now, possibly doing some vocals and keyboard stuff way down the line. Believe it or not, I was previously recording on AcidMusic, using the tiny mic my PC came with next to a crappy old practice amp (didn't sound as bad as you'd think with the right amount of overdubs).

Anyway, I'm attempting to upgrade. Now I've got a Tascam US-122 hooked up through my USB, and the drivers appear to be working sort of, as I'm getting enough of a signal to tune through the control panel, and I've managed to record into AcidMusic and SoundForge (although this was in mono and I wasn't able to hear it while recording through my speakers or through headphones hooked up through the US-120).

I've got the bundled Cubasis and Gigastudio software installed, but neither seems to pick up a signal from the US-120. I've also tried moving other sound files into Cubasis (including the demo stuff included with the package), and, while they appear to play, I can't hear them through the headphones on the US-120 or through my computer's speakers.

I e-mailed Tascam with some of my questions and included the diagnostic info I got when Gigastudio crashed, and the answer was short, sweet, and vague - I need to disable hyper-threading through my BIOS because Gigastudio doesn't work with it. Aside from the fact that this doesn't really address any of my non-Gigastudio problems, (and here's where I ask a REALLY dumb question) how exactly do you access the BIOS to disable hyper-threading on Windows XP?

Also, isn't it a BAD thing to do this, since I'd be limiting my computer's capabilities? I'm considering switching to Cakewalk or something, anyway - is Gigastudio a necessary enough tool to reconfigure my system in this way?

Anyway, ANY help would be very appreciated, since I'm pretty much flying blind.

If it helps, I'm running on Windows XP, I've got a SoundBlaster Live! soundcard (and, yes, I know I'll probably want to upgrade).