recording and playback problem

[Eddie N]

dear friends ,

how come when i record a second track into cakewalk , and i play it solo i can hear the first track lightly in the back ground ? and when i play the first and second tracks at the same time , it creates an distorted echo effect ... i have an ESS Audiodrive soundcard , and when i select the source my options are " left ESS Audiodrive Record " and " right ESS Audiodrive record " .... if i record the first track from the right and the second from the left i dont have the problem.... but if i record both tracks from the left , i can hear the first track faintly in the background as well... is there an option that i dont know about to turn this off ? or is it because i have a cruddy soundcard that only has 2 recording sources ? i also notice that my playback sucks and is filled with alot of popping and hissing.... is this a soundcard isuue as well ? or do i have my levels wrong ? my final problem is that during playback of around 4 tracks , cakewalk sorta stutters and seems to stumble through the song , and doesnt perform smoothly ... what inadequicy does my computer have that makes this happen ? its a 300 mmx pentium II with a 4 gig hard drive and 60 mb's of RAM...any help would be greatly appreciated.... thank you .....

- eddie -