We've updated computers at the radio station...now missing an 'important' FX feature query

Question

Good Morning fellow users,
We've updated our computers at the 6 radio stations I work for...all 6 production rooms and studios (for those not using VoxPro, myself included:)) to newer, core 'i' machines from the old school Pentium 4s we had which were on their last let (yet ran Audition 3.X) just fine. The newer machines are nice. They're signifcantly quicker chewing through mp3s, conversion betweeen and to different formats...but obviously, it's older softare that isn't able to take advantage of 64Bit or Multiple cores...so other than having a more reliable, speedier version...until we can convince the 'suits' to be that we need to bump up to the latest version, we'll be using said 3.X
That said, one of the main features we've been unable to figure out how to get back to our defaut 'edit' screen is the little volume knob that pops up while a segment of the audio is selected. IE, you've clicked and dragged a portion of the existing audio in the edit screen to 'turn it white'. In the little area above selected audio file, in the 'white/selected' area....we (used to) have a small volume icon that allowed for automatic amplifcation with a simple click and drag of the mouse (either right or left for volume 'up or down'). It looks as though the engineer did re-image each machine with the corporate Audition disc---however, it's showing as Audition 3.0 in the "About Audition" tab under Help. Isn't or wasn't there an updated to at least 3.1 or 3.01?  Just wanted to double check as I run the 'new' Audition on my Macs for my home business--and I'm really enjoying it:)  However...3.X, IMHO is one of, if not THE Best Wave editor...for it's time, in the History of Wave/Simple editing and production on the run. Since the Syntrillium/Cool Edit days, I've used it (since transitioning from SAW in the mid 90's).  So it's been a bit tough to get acquainted with my Mac version....I just don't see the update happening in 'corporate' radio for some time. It took a whole lotta time, effort, and bureaucratic BS just to get the new hardware. We'll go to battle for the software in this year's budget (not to be distributed til next year---likely 3rd or 4th quarter:))....so must make do with the 3.X for now.
Lastly, we're gettin a studder after a quick edit. Say I'm cutting a 30 second spot...4 or 5 seconds of dead handles, maybe a slip in the middle...total of 43 second sound file. I quickly cut the front handle, but left click dragging to the start, hit delete, hit space bar....studder, studder for about 2-3 seconds before it works itself out. Is there a cache setting I'm missing somewhere? If I go back and play from the beginning the file is just fine. No issues. Just that initial playback after edit. It's annoying but not a deal killer. Easily gotten used to. 
In radio, as our jobs (and hats we wear) have become more and more "Life in the production room" producing for smaller markets, voice-tracking, commercial and audio produciton/voice over--again, for the smaller markets that these days are running 'jock-less'....Audition has easily become my number 1 tool in the box. Just a couple quirks I'd like to get worked out for the rest of our air/prod staff. I was, in fact, very happy with the older machines---each of our 'Workspaces' set up as we liked. Unfortunately, we ALL know how the engineers work. They get the new machines, pull the old, re-image and THEN send out that email. Ugghhhhh!  After almost 30 years in the buz, I sometimes miss when ALL they dealt with was RF and transmitters:)  We fixed our own 'work-stations' by writing out 3x5" index cards and bulk erasing carts, donuts (reels), and opening fresh, new vinyl from the labels:)
Thanks for your time!
Jer

Answer 1

Thanks MusicConductor
Have I in some way 'messed' with the RealTek driver by disabling sounds? After reading your reply I actually went and looked at the back panel of the computer. I was blown away...as you're correct, we are using the internal/stock sound card!  That's never been the case, as our engineer has always put a pro card---usually, if memory serves, a PCI/PCI-E Digigram card. However...with this new workstation he put in, he's utilizing the onboard, RealTek software/stock internal solution.  To date, it's worked well...however, Audition crashed last week and we had to do a full install of the program again yesterday. Cut both yesterday and today's shows and the stuttering is back. Sounds in Windows are 'off' and cache/buffer sizes have been increased. I'll continue to play this week...and I still have to update to 3.01 after the fatal error with the software last week.
Thanks again...and if there's something I should not do with the Realtek software, can you be more specific?  I'm not sure I've messed with anything pertinent. We've got both ins and outs (from the sound card) separated into stereo RCA for both in and output. Sound quality seems to be just fine. (No noise/hiss or otherwise unnecessary or unwanted artifacts).  Maybe this is the issue. The onboard sound card. As I mentioned, in past systems we've used Lynx or Digigram pro cards. I'm kind of surprised to see us using the internal/stock card. As you say though, we've gone through some evolution with the isolation and performance of on board sound.  The RealTek driver version is 6.0.1.6392. One other question....in 'shared' mode...should I be running 24bit 48000Hz or 24bit 44100Hz?  Again...this is primarily used for saving down to MP3, transferring to our proprietary "Next Gen" system in generic MP3 flavor...so Next Gen can wrap it in it's own proprietary WAV format. In this case, is there a reason I shouldn't just be running it at 16bit 44100? In the control panel I have it set to 'No sounds' in sound scheme and in the lower "Program Events' box, I've selected '(None)'. Is this as 'deep' as I can get in the sound settings?
Thanks again. This stuttering isn't normal...and with the inherent speed increase (CPU) and RAM update, as well as a speedier drive (7200rpm), I'm not sure the cause. The last and older system (Pentium IV) was also updated to Windows 7---so it did work fine with the current OS albeit on the older spec'ed machine.
J