Reply to Audio 8 CPU Spikes

hey everyone,

i recently started digital djing again with tsp 2.5 and i'm having some issues with my audio 8 and cpu/latency spikes. it's like clockwork. when i have the audio 8 plugged in and traktor running (even just idle), i get cpu spikes to 25% every 10 seconds or so (all other times cpu is at 0-1%). when running the latency test within traktor i get the same results with latency usually hitting around 400 every 10 secs. it still stays in the green mostly, but it seems like these semi-quick spikes are causing some minor audio issues...almost like a slight pop in kick sounds, which is driving me nuts. this issue only happens when traktor is running and the audio 8 is plugged in. i'm currently running in external mixing mode with an x1 and an old 2 channel numark mixer. here's my laptop specs:

hp dv6: i5 processor with 8 gigs of ram running windows 7 64 bit. brand new laptop, less than 1 month old that i am ONLY using for traktor. i have followed most of the pc tune up steps and have some backround services disabled, wifi disabled, virus software disabled, etc.

i have tried uninstalling the audio 8 driver (which was loaded during the tsp 2.5 install) and installed the newest driver from the ni site (which ended up being the same one). i have tried a different usb cable and every port on my laptop with no luck. i have also tried every latency setting in traktor and it's the same result. i tried unchecking multi-core support but that ended up making the issue worse and generally spiking to about 40% cpu load.

do you guys believe it may be an issue with the audio 8 itself? i'm about to pick up an s4 in the near future and really hope that this issue will not continue with that hardware. what do you guys believe?

thanks for taking the time to read this and any insight would be helpful.