Various music softwares' playback erratic

[Guest]

In late May my house was struck by lightning. My PC was damaged even though
I had a surge protector. The modem got fried, so I had that replaced. But
then there was no sound. Put it back in the shop where a new motherboard
with built-in sound card (same sound card as before) was installed. Windows
Media Player 10.0 sometimes starts playing but the sound sometimes does not
start until a second or two later--after the first couple of notes. My
Acoustica Mixcraft multi-track recorder, Acoustica Beatcraft, Acoustica 3.2
music editor (different company), and Music Masterworks midi writer do not
play music very well anymore--the sound is jerky with dropouts and skips. I
even had a different sound card put in with my old one disabled, still the
same thing. The computer repair place has no idea. It's not the sound card.
It must be something in Windows. Everything played fine before the
lightning. Any ideas anyone? I'm desperate!

 

[Guest]

Disable the built-in (on board) soundcard in the Device Manager under the
Control Panel. Then purchase a new PCI soundcard from Best Buy, Circuit
City or check eBay. They run from $10 up to mega-bucks.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, Byte, but that's exactly what I had the computer repair place do.
They put in a completely different sound card--even a different brand, but
still the music pauses erratically. Any other suggestions?
High Iron

 

[Guest]

Sorry, I missed the part about you replacing the soundcard. I was told a
long time ago, that when your PC gets fried, especially the MoBo, is to
take out parts that are salvagable, and trash the rest. Buying a new MoBo
was not the best route for you to take as you are finding out right now.
You probably have some faulty wiring between the MoBo and your CD-Rom
drive and possibly other peripherals. Didn't the repair shop check all this
out before returning it to you?

 

[Guest]

Thanks, Byte. Believe it or not, I solved the problem. Maybe you helped me
to think outside the box a bit. I started wondering if maybe it was just a
coincidence that it happened with the lightning strike, and started
remembering about what other things I had done to the PC around about the
time the lightning hit. Turns out I loaded Spy Sweeper anti-spyware
software. It has a setting for "Memory Shield". I unchecked that box, and,
voila! the offending music software started playing without any
interruptions all the way through. Played it again and it did fine, but as
soon as I checked the box, started messing up within 20 seconds. I've tested
it a bunch, so it was the anti-spyware that caused it. Thanks for your help.