Alesis i|O26 and ASIO-guard

Been searching the forum and I’m quessing this problem is caused by my audio interface and latency. But can something be done to it…

My audio interface is Alesis i|O26 Firewire, Windows 7 running Cubase 8. Asio-guard drops all audio off everytime I i.e load up a new plugin. In a new project all works well but when there’s more instruments involved it cuts out. I’ve set i|O26’s buffer size to it’s max (that is 256 samples) but no help with bigger projects. Without asio-guard all works.

So, should I just keep the asio-guard off and keep freezing tracks until I get a new audio interface?