Haven't had time to follow up on all your suggestions but here's where I'm at:

Originally Posted By: Matt Finley
Is this an older M-Audio 2496 card? Running on ASIO? Increase the buffer size.

Card is from 2008. It's running ASIO, sample rate 44.1kHz, buffer size 64. Haven't had a chance to try with larger buffer. I do notice that if I just play my piano on the thru channel but without the backing track playing, there's far less static than if I just play the backing track.

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Otherwise please provide more info. What is your single-core Geekbench (free) score?

1835/4770

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Does DPC Latency Checker (also free) show red spikes?

Haven't run it

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How much free space by % is on your hard drive (more than 15, I hope)?

50%

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Are all your audio and video drivers up to date?

Audiophile has latest updates, video driver I'm not sure.

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You say it just started. What could have just changed such as a Windows update?

I checked the windows update log, it's all antivirus, MSE security stuff. The last non security update was .NET framework a week ago.