IS my Macbook working okay or needing an overhaul

Hi

I have a rather powerful PC desktop that I use for most of my work, however when I am out and on the go I have an old refurbished and upgraded MACBOOK, I bought it used and refurbished and slightly upgraded in 2010, but have used it very little for audio related work since then, as I do most tasks on a rather powerful desktop PC with W7.


I am working on a rather simple mix project that I think it should be able to handle but it is starting to show signs of strain (audio pops and crackles).

the computer is a 2007 MACBOOK 3.1 running OS 10.6.8
it has 2 GB rAM and 2.2GHz intel core duo 320 GB HDD ( I think 7200 RPM - that is what I asked for but not sure how to check)
running CUBASE 6.0.2
audio interface is tascam us 122

The project is a location multitrack recording of a live band that I am mixing,

There are 12- 16 tracks of audio (depending on the moment) (44.1, 24 bit)
There is a reverb and compressor on the master and a reverb and compressor fx send tracks
with a number of tracks feeding it with sends.

There are 9 tracks with vintage compression as inserts
there are 3 total instances of reverence running
11 tracks are using the cubase native track EQ

No VSTi running

it seems to me that this machine should be able to handle a project of this nature easily, so I am either mistaken or there is some tweaking /overhauling that needs to be done to my MACBOOK.

I recently also did a tracking session for a demo, I had a bunch of tracks running and was recording two tracks and monitoring, as the session progressed the computer started to kackout.

So I either have a computer that should be capable of these projects ( I think so ) and needs some tweaking - what I am not sure.

Or I have a computer that cannot meet these relatively basic audio needs.

Please share some insight, I am i expecting to much from this computer?

If you can share any OS tweaks or clean ups that will make this thing run better, that would be most appreciated.

thanks in advance

Have you tried raising the soundcards buffer size?