I bought a mic and recording desk recently and have hooked it up to my ac97via. sys sound card. On my laptop ( Sony PCG-FX405GB) I can hear any music played perfectly (output is fine) but there is alot of background hiss on the input of the sound card. This problem becomes even worse when I plug my mic into the sound card. Is this to do with problems with the settings of my sound card or is the hardware just broken?

I am using windows xp and cubase sx 2