Latency & Static Issues with Audio

[TheEclectic]

I am having some serious latency and static issues with Live since I got a new Mac Mini w/ 8 gigs of ram and I7 processor running Lion. I play primarily guitar and I am using an M-Audio Fast track Ultra with the latest drivers.

Here are the settings that overall sound the best, but I keep getting these random static storms as I am playing & recording - even if I am running clean without any VST’s:

In/Out Sample Rate: 96000
Latency Buffer Size: 150 Samples

This gives me around 6.12 ms latency. I tried increasing the number of samples and I get constant static. I tried dropping the sample rate and I get latencies of over 15ms, which is a noticeable delay (I want to be around 10ms). When going with the higher latencies, I do not get the static.

Any advice is appreciated.