Yesterday I for the first time hooked up my entire new set up--new computer, FF800, Axe-Fx II, etc. Having never done this before, I've run into a couple of problems, but fortunately the driver installation and firmware updates have gone really smoothly.

I spent quite a bit of time in the 'Sounds' menu of my computer trying to figure out exactly what should be disabled and what should be defaulted, and I now have sound coming through my monitors, fed by my FF800, when I go on youtube or listen to music. No problem.

But, I'm getting about .25ms (to guess) latency when I play guitar through my Axe-Fx. This happens even when I'm not using Reaper, my DAW. All I need to do is play my guitar and it comes through my speakers. So, for one, I'm not sure if this set up is right: perhaps it's the case that I should only be getting audio from my guitar when I open Reaper, create a track, then arm it? If so, then it seems I've done something wrong in the 'Sounds' menu of Windows.

Perhaps more interestingly, when I do open Reaper, it says I only have about 2.3ms of latency, which is great. But even with it opened, and with a track armed, I'm still hearing approx. .25ms of latency. And I'm seeing my levels in the track rise when I play, but nothing is indicated in my master track. I'm not sure if that should be the case...

Anyways, initially when I opened Reaper it had me at about 23ms of latency, but then after doing some reading I disabled the Nividia and the Realtek High Definition Audio soundcards on my computer and that brought the latency down--according to Reaper--to around 2.3ms, as I said.

So, in short, my question is: why am I getting so much latency, even though Reaper says it's so low? Is this a FF800 issue, a DAW issue, or a configuration issue in my 'Sounds' menu on Win7?

Oh, and yes, I've brought my buffer size down to 48 on both the FF800 and on Reaper...didn't do anything.

Computer specs:

Win 7
Asus p9x79 deluxe mobo
Intel 7 3930k
Lacie TI PCI-E card

Help much appreciated. Thanks guys.

Oh, and I'll add how I've hooked things up:

The Axe-Fx is a) hooked up to my computer via USB and b) to the FF800 through a TRS to XLR cable (not sure if this is right, but there's no USB port on the RME and I think I need to hook up the Axe via USB to the computer to, for instance, use the Axe-Edit program)

Then the RME is hooked up to the computer via firewire 800 into a Lacie TI firewire card.