Very strange cubase problem, please help

I finaly got around to buying some recording equipment and it seemed like everything was pretty good.

But when I finaly set up my interface and Cubase 3.0 LE I started gettng this very very weird problem. It took me long enough to get a signal through to it, so this is the last thing I need.

The play and stop buttons seem to have minds of their own seizuring on and off whenever it is opened. I cant seem to get more than ten seconds of recording time (with the average being far less than one second) without it stopping itself.

This seems very odd to me and I have no idea why on earth it would do this.

Has anyone ever had this problem or any experience with a problem like this?

Thank you,
Sam.