Hi, I just recently changed my motherboard (old one died and i didnt want a full upgrade). The new motherboard is a Gigabyte 8VM533M-RZ, which has integrated sound. I've installed all the drivers, however all i get is static noises when a sound is played. Another weird thing is that my mp3s are playing are a very fast speed. i cant hear the songs, just static. The mp3s played in either Media player or Winamp is the same - static and appears to be at a much quicker speed (i can see the bar moving faster than it should). It doesnt appear to be the speakers either, because they work on my laptop. Anyone got any ideas on what to do? Thanks

You have all the symptoms of installing the wrong sound drivers. Check the specs and manual for the mboard to find out what you actually have - if more than one sound option is mentioned, look at the make and model of sound chips on the mboard to conform which one you have. There may be drivers for several different sound chipsets on the mboard CD, or in the downloads for your mboard on the Gigabyte web site - if the right ones are not automatically detected by the mboard CD driver installation, it's not hard to choose the wrong drivers.

I've tried downloading the drivers from the Gigabyte website, but it doesnt seem to have resolved the static. I'm very confused. I'm wondering if i tried to reformat if it would work.

Please read response 1 carefully. You should be able to determine whether you have the right drivers. That shoukld be all you need to do. By the way, you should always Uninstall the drivers that don't work properly first before you try other ones. Re-formatting to try to cure a problem like this (or for most problems for that matter) is a bonehead thing to do in my opinion - and if you use the wrong drivers again you will have the same problem. There's a tiny possibility the onboard sound is defective but that is extremely unlikely. If you used the hard drive that had Windows installed on it when it was on the old mboard without re-installing Windows, if the old mboard was different from your new one, you could try a Repair Setup. An XP Repair Setup will not harm your existing Windows installation, but it can only fix things Windows detects as wrong, and/or replace corrupted or missing Windows files that are on your original XP CD. In the case of drastically changed hardware, it will set Windows to the new hardware situation. You will need a Windows CD of the same version as the one of your Windows installation, and the Product Key, preferably the one that was used to install it, but it can be one for the same version as the one of your Windows installation. how to do an XP Repair Setup, step by step: http://www.windowsreinstall.com/win... The above assumes you DO NOT have a brand name system that still has it's original software on it. If your Windows CD did not have SP1 or SP2 included, and you updated to SP1 or SP2, you will have probaly have to install that again to get SP1 or SP2 working properly. SP1 or later is required for USB 2.0 and hard drives larger than 137gb (manufacturer's size; 128gb in Windows and most bioses). After Setup has finished, install all the drivers for the mboard, especially the main chipset drivers - those are almost always all on the CD that came with the mboard. If you get drivers from the Gigabyte web site for your model, mboard manufacturers often do not list the main chipset drivers - in that case you must get those from the main chipset maker's web site. Make sure you load the correct drivers for the sound chipset you have.