Cakewalk + old Audiobox USB = no good?

[goatofmendes]

I am having problems trying to record guitar in Cakewalk with my Audiobox USB (Running on Dell G5, 16GB Ram, Intel Core i7). The first problems were the audio dropouts. I tried increasing buffer size up to 1024 at the ASIO control panel, but still no good. They happen even if I am running no plugins at all. System memory stays at 46% usage. 
Anyway, I tried again today and for some reason the dropouts stopped and I managed to record a guitar track. 
However, when I try to adjust the pan, the audio increasingly distorts as I move left or right. The tone stays clean if I leave it centered. (Solved),
I wonder if it's my  Audiobox, a driver problem or something. It's the old model, but I have the latest drivers installed. Or maybe I am doing something wrong, as I am new to Cakewalk. 
Does anyone have a clue? Thanks in advance. 

UPDATE: The distorted output was a actually headphone jack problem, solved. The dropouts remain, but not always. I couldn't figure out the cause yet.

Edited October 3, 2020 by goatofmendes

[Promidi]

What OS tweaks have you done.

What is your OS and build number?

Turned core parking off?

Try disabling C-States and Intel speed step  (This is done in BIOS - how depends on your system)

Start + Run > "control powercfg.cpl,,1" (without quotes), set CPU min and Max to 100%

What is your sample rate and bit depth?

My projectless Cakewalk only take 25% ram(I have 16gig ram).  Check your task manager for CPU and memory utilisation.

Are there any other sound cards enabled other than the Audiobox USB?

I have an i5 4th gen, 16gig ram buffer size at 256, 48Khz 24bit Windows 10 64bit 2004 with a 2nd gen focusrite 2i2 and I can record a stereo signal with no drop outs.

[HIBI]

First of all, I believe 46% usage (it's over 7GB) of 16GB RAM is too high without sample-based instruments plugins. I guess something use large memory should be running in the background.

[twelvetone]

I had the AudioBox 22VSL and the ASIO drivers just did not work with, back then, Sonar.

I downloaded the next driver version when it became available and then WSL did not work, either.

Other audio software (audacity) and DAW (Reaper) were fine.

I forget the precise details, but I wasn't able to use it with Sonar.