Hi, I'm getting latency on my recordings. I use a Samson USB QU1 mic on my Toshiba Satellite A350, with Realtek High Definition Audio driver. I use Magix Music Maker 16. I've got asio4all installed but to be honest, I'm a bit in the dark on how to get it set up to reduce the latency. Can anyone give me any instructions? Lot of the stuff I've read has just used too many technical terms so I got lost straight away. So simple terms would be nice... 

Unfamiliar with your setup SoleBrick but one sure way to reduce is by turning off plugins and mute aux sends when recording also to  mute the output of the track you're recording on and monitor input only ...out of your mixer... otherwise what your going to hear back when recording a vocal 4 example will be usb slooooowww. playback.
I use logic and there is a low latency button on the transport which when engaged kills the aux sends tightening up the playback a lot.
I use an M box interface , pull the input / playback knob, almost all the way to input....this of course reduces the playback level of recorded material so to compensate I push the output on the headphones, a balancing act really.
But having said that I still have to nudge recordings to put them on the beat.
The magic is in a firewire interface ....in my humble opinion usb really doesn't cut it.

Not familiar with "aux sends", don't have a mixer, just the software, ~USB mic into laptop...really need some help on configuring ASIO driver me thinks....

you should have a buffer sizing option in your magix recording software .. somewhere in there.. set it as low as it will go without stalling the computer.  some of the good software stuff out there has latency offset.

 the faster/more powerful computer lower you can get the latency.

 when recording make sure no other programs are running. you can also go to a website that tell you how to  get the best performance for recordings. 

http://www.audioforums.com/windows-vista-optimization.php

 IF this isn't the software you use,, google around I'm sure someone is starting to post info on this.

What toasty said and more....you dont have much external stuff so it's in your system, are you on Vista or XP still? I dont know about 7 but I'll suggest you stick to XP, you can do nearly anything you want to to it, customize it, tweak it, shrink it to a floppy if you try.
What I'm getting to is a magic place called the Start/Run/(type in box) msconfig  go to 'start up' tab ........ once you're there un-tick every thing and restart you pc ... see the difference , you can go back there now and put a few things you may need back on. But that in most cases gives your system back to you.
Once you have your pcs resources you can then start checking out the software that you use.
As stated above.....buffer size makes a difference, if you have ASIO4all you should be able to choose "Full Duplex" (or something similar) as the audio driver in your audio recorder/editor and you should also be able to change/set settings (also buffer I think) in the ASIO4all interface.
This system I'm on has no DAW so I cant check things out for you sorry.

win 7 kicks ass..my computer loves it.  I had xp it kept stalling. locking up. had to keep restarting it again and again.. I have none of that with Win 7.  It's a faster, smaller better design. Microsoft finally got something right. 

It's the same for win 7 for the msconfig startup.

Yes I've heard that 7 is much better, I've not tried it out yet though.
Strange about your xp, I've only known it to be very stable and most programs work in it. You didn't have the 64 bit did you? I've read that it causes a lot of grief especially to music program users.

New PC ... new OS ...I'll give it a go.

Thanks, guys...I think I've sorted it. Sounds a lot better than it was. I reduced the audio buffer in Magix. Not really recorded anything significant yet. But if any further problems, I know who to ask. Cheers. 
PS. I'm really still unsure on Asio4all...things there I really don't understand. Need to do a bit more research me thinks... 

I don't like Asio4all.. I have it. don't used it.. I change out specific driver for each item.. If  I am using my motu stuff.. I pull up the motu driver.  If I am using the pod x3 live or the guitar port I pull up their drivers.. seems like asio4 all give me higher latency issues.  if i use asio4 all.. I'm around 17milliseconds.. If I use the motu... 4 miliseconds.. I can cut that down too. but killing i/o channels I don't need to use.

I use Windows 7 and its flipping amazing and I use Asio and the drivers work fine. havnet tried motu but ill have to check that out

the motu drivers for PC are ASIO drivers designed specifically for Motu products.

craig, Audacity doesn't have ASIO support.

dude which program are you using with asio?

u gotta get adobe audition dude we'll need it for our album.

ASIO4ALL is an alright solution for if your card is internal, but for decent usb or pci sound cards, they should have their own ASIO drivers - try visiting the website of the manufacturer