ASIO maxing out

Hi,
I’ve been searching the forums and kb for this issue where the hardware specific to mine is involved (the MacBook Pro). Apologies in advance if it is covered elsewhere I didn’t find. I’m hoping someone nice could help point me in the right direction. This issue doesn’t happen when I use the XS as a VST instrument.

Issue: asio performance indicator peaking in split seconds at a time causing loud clicks in audio output.

Setup: MacBook pro 2.53 ghz, 350gb 7200 rpm, 4gb ram, FireWire to motif XS 7 via FW interface card. Latest FW driver.

VST instrument: Halion Sonic latest version with latest patches. Sound bank: Halion symphonic orc. All 16 channels used by a different instrument.

Others: cubase 6.0 with latest patches.

My questions are:
Is my MacBook pro sufficient for the task? It certainly meets the minimum system requirement stated by Steinberg.
If it is, what CPU disk setting ( in Halion sonic ) is recommended?
Any other setting or setup you would recommend?

Thanks very much in advance…

The solution, owing to some familiarisation with OSX is really simple. All that was needed was tweaking and monitoring with the right tools. Unfortunately, XS dev man has to go and now there is some purchasing to do.