flyphish
re whining sound.
by any chance are you connecting audio line out thats built into lappie
into a mixer input ??
it might be hard drive bleed into the mixer input.
actually it might be several things.
see if running on lappie battery power cures it..if not
might be a winky output stage in the line out of the lappie injecting noise.

i personally caution against useing lappies for serious work,
cos practically every el cheapo lappie i test has one problem or another.
yes i KNOW they are sexy n portable. but most have probs.
read my tips in the tips n triks section of these forums.
also if not done so..if you wanna see how good your lappies are re dpc..run this sometime..
it checks the dreaded latency..
http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml
fyi every lappie ive tested this year has red spikes.
which is why touring acts etc normally get proper lappies built for daw work.
eg check out the quad core lappies at www.adkproaudio.com
trouble is the price.
but they have proper chipsets and proper hard drives etc etc.

good luck.

retired puter engr....powertracks on amd......NICE !
"what is the black art of audio engineering ?"
my silly songs...motagator.com/bmanning
see my tips in the tips section.