CD Playback problems on Sound Blaster Live! sound card

[Guest]

I'm having a problem playing CDs from Windows Media player 10.00.00.3802. It
only happens when playing back song on cds. It crackles and skips. All
other play back works great including ripping music from the cd and playing
it back on the hard drive.

I fixed the same problem with another machine (which was a little faster,
same sound card) by turning on the hyper threading feature. The problem with
that fix is that this machine does not support hyper threading.

I've upgraded the Sound Blaster drivers (several ways), tweaked the hardware
acceleration features, adjusted the IRQ (by switching slots), adjusted all
settings in XP audio settings, and messed with every setting in Windows Media
10 known to man (minus registry settings).

Brief summary on hardware:
Dell GX260 (512 Meg of Ram, 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 Processor)
Sound Blaster Live! Digital
Samsung SC-148C 48x CD-ROM
Harmon HK206 Analog Speakers

Brief summary on software:
Windows XP w/ Service Pack 2 (freshly loaded)
Windows Media 10.00.00.3802

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Sorry about the double post.
I forgot an important paragraph on last post.

 

[Guest]

Take a look here:
Resources for Troubleshooting Sound Problems in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q307918

 

[Guest]

I went through it again but still crackles on playback of cds.

 

[Les Herrman]

Are you suing Digital or analog playback? Try switching it to the
other setting...(Note for analog you need the cable from the cd to the
sound card for digital you do not)