General system malaise

[scarshapedstar]

Yeah... something screwy is going on. For a long time, this computer has been taking too long to start, about 10 times as long as a fresh XP installation. I've ran Ad-Aware and disabled the startup items I don't need, but it is still suspiciously sluggish. No viruses, either.

I'm also having sound problems. After 25 minutes of listening to Winamp, it tends to get scratchy or "beepy", and the music slows down, and then it just stops playing. Trying to unpause it doesn't work, but if I reload the song it plays fine.

Certain games are having sound issues. Battlefield 1942 has perfect sound until I actually start playing a map, and then it's all scratchy. Savage also has sound until I join a game, and then there is none whatsoever.

I'm using an Audigy Platinum. I just reinstalled the drivers and utilities, to no avail. No hardware conflicts, and dxdiag said directsound and directmusic are working fine.

Oh, and System Restore refuses to work. It goes through the motions, restarts, and tells me something like "Windows was unable to restore your system to <date/time>".

Anyone have a guess as to what I should try?

[John Prophet]

sounds nackered.

I would try a "repair" install....boot from the cd..dont do the first "R" option cuz that is the repair console...you dont want that..so just start the install and it'll find the exisiting windows install and it'll give you the option to "repair" it.

JP

[RedFury]

I'm getting to like the idea of upgrading to XP more and more JP...you may have just sealed the deal for me.

I get a feeling this isn't a driver issue, but more of an environment issue...like someone took a map, and redrew all the roads. All the places you want to go to are still there, you just don't know how to get to them anymore.

[John Prophet]

or like the time when I was involved in a police search and the dude that was the so called "authority" of our little search group was holding the map upside down?


I think XP is probably the best one so far.