There are a number of reasons why this can occur. Try each of the following steps:

1.Go to the Windows 95/98 Control Panel and double-click on the System icon. Click on the
Performance tab. At the top of thePerformance screen read the entries across from File
Systems and Virtual Memory. They both need to say 32-bit. If they instead mention
MS-DOS Compatibility Mode then your computer has a serious problem - beyond the
scope of what a Cakewalk technician can fix. Your computer is processing the audio data
very slowly and Cakewalk will not work properly until the MS-DOS Compatibility Mode
problem is eliminated. Help is available on the Microsoft Technical Support web page at
microsoft.com Click on the "Support Online" link and search for the phrase
"Troubleshooting MS-DOS Compatibility Mode on Hard Disks".

2.Your audio hard disk must have an "uncached" or "sustained" transfer rate of 3.1 MB per
second or higher. A free program called WinTune is available from winmag.com that
will test your hard drive performance and report your uncached transfer rate.

3.Defragment all of your hard disks. (Start | Programs | Accessories | Systems Tools | Disk
Defragmenter.)

4.Make sure nothing else is running while Cakewalk is open. Click Ctrl+Alt+Del and End
Task everything other than Explorer, Systray, Cakewalk, and anything else you
absolutely need. All antivirus software, crash protectors, screen savers, and so on
must be shut down.

5.Remove all programs from the Windows StartUp folder
(Windows\StartMenu\Programs\StartUp)

6.Open WIN.INI and if there is anything after the run= or load= lines, use a semi-colon to
rem the line out.

7.Disable any kind of virus scanning program that might be running in the background.

8.If Cakewalk's Auto Save feature is enabled, try to disable it.

9.Go to Control Panel | System | Performance | Graphics, and turn "Hardware acceleration"
down a couple of notches. (Usually two is sufficient)

10.Make sure Cakewalk (and the Wavedata directory) is not installed on a compressed hard
disk.

11.Also, you can try entering into System.ini: [vcache] MaxFileCache=4096

12.Make sure you have the most recent drivers for your soundcard installed.

13.Try the following:
Cakewalk 9.0 - increasing the Buffers in Playback Queue setting in Options | Audio.
Cakewalk 7.0x and later - increasing the Playback Buffers setting to 12 under Tools |
Audio Options | Advanced.
Cakewalk 6.0x and earlier - increasing the Queue Buffer setting to 12 under Settings |
Audio Options | Advanced.
Cakewalk 6.0x and earlier - Make sure Enable Low Latency Mixing is off (un-checked) in
Cakewalk's Settings | Audio Options menu.

14.Un-check "Enable Simultaneous Record / Playback" in Cakewalk's Options | Audio
menu.