You do want to use the ASIO drivers.
May also help to set your levels viewing n-track record meters prior to hitting record then shut them off. (I've had a few click and pops when I leave them on) specialy at 96Khz.
May also be a harddrive problem most laptops only have a 4200 RPM drive.... rather slow for audio multitracking. Consider a second firewire drive at 7200 RPM for all audio data.
My setup is:
Winders XP Home
HP Pavilion zu1175 laptop 700Mhz 512 RAM Hitachi 7200 RPM laptop drive (tweaked to the hilt for DAW only!!!)
SIIG 1394 CardBus Dual - 2-port CardBus-to-1394 FireWire
Western Digital 120 gig 7200 RPM Firewire drive (audio data only)
MOTU828mkII
Works great for me!!
Start you buffering at around 1024 thru the MOTU console then work your way down.
At any rate .... there are many variables to consider when setting up a DAW specially when it's a laptop - IRQ's for one, laptops tend to share all the good ones. best bet is to disable shared devices that aren't needed like nic, modem, internal sound card etc...
If this is your only computer, it may be helpfull to set up different hardware profiles allowing you to boot up as a reg. computer or as a DAW. Info on Hardware profiles can be found at
http://www.blackviper.com/
Good Luck and Happy Recording
Ken
Edit- look to the left of the blackviper site for - Windows Service Configurations