[The Dougfather]

If you've had hooky software installed on your mac then i strongly recommend you either erase and install or create a new partition with a fresh os and see if that helps. When you install cracked software who knows what is being installed and an install doesn't mean there aren't any remnants of it left which are causing issue.

IMHO if you are eligible for the crossgrade to Pro Tools 9 i would urge you to research all the interfaces out there and ask yourself if your getting the best bang to buck ratio. There are a few of these little boxes out there which have ADAT i/o which offers huge expansion possibilities, TC, MOTU, Focusrite etc which the Avid stuff doesn't.