Getback,
I assume win7 but go into sound,check playback and mute mic! be sure it's active in record,I had this issue with vista and it took forever to figure out what and where the problem was.
Finally I resorted to deleting mic from playback config. and that solved the issue in vista.
As for pan view,look in options,preferences,views,you likely need to uncheck snapview!
hope that helps.