itch / twitch help (set up possibly) - not volume issue

I recently brought a Novation twitch and a Toshiba satalite c666 laptop to run itch off

This set up was purchased in Jan and the software was updated to latest version of itch when i installed it for the first time

I have used this set up for live (club) and radio since i brought it with no problems (well one small one but ill get to that in a bit) until this weekend

I did 2 club gigs (sun and mon same club) with a radio set on mon afternoon as well also broadcast from the club (when it was closed)

sunday evening gig - constant glitches when i brought both tracks into the mix - nothing when individual tracks were playing

Mon afternoon radio - absolutely fine no problems (exactly same set up)

Mon evening gig - constant glitches when i brought both tracks into the mix - nothing when individual tracks were playing

on both occasions when it was glitching i switched to cd then rebooted which got rid of the issues but on both reboots when i played the first track it glitched again just once in about the first 10 secs of music


im running windows 7
nothing apart from VLC player is installed on the laptop by me
windows is updated to latest version
all cables are brand new
wifi is turned off (including scanning)
checked the little cpu bar when it was glitching and it was not even at 2/3rds full so dont believe its cpu problem
tried moving cables but made no difference
laptop is plugged in when used at gigs
ive been told win 7 is very task heavy and i should kill some of the tasks
ive been told the on the hour glitch might be HD trying to go into sleep mode but i cant find a setting for this

now one other small thing ive noticed - upon each hour the laptop is running (from switched on) if itch is playing ull get a tiny blip / glitch in the audio u can time it perfectly and its exactly on the hour every hour of when the laptop is turned on - ive looked at everything i can believe of and cant find anything this could be


SO

my questions are thus:

1 - does anyone have any ideas or solutions to the problems i had in the club

2 - is there any settings i should be looking at on the laptop

3 - any tips to help get rid of any future problems like this

4 - has anyone written a guide on setting up a laptop purely for djing on ?

5 - anything else i should know

6 - any idea about the on the hour glitch?


ive got another gig this weekend so really need to get this fixed so any help appreciated