I'm not sure I posted this in the correct location. Move it if you have to and let me know where. A pastor friend of mine, who lives 1500 miles away is having trouble with his audio connection while we hold a Bible Study using Windows Live Messenger. We have been having good communication, video as well as audio for a year now. This past week his audio to me sounds like a broken record. Not all the time but every few minutes. I have tried to help him but am limited without being at his computer. This past week he installed SKYPE in preparation for communications with his grandson who is going to Japan. I suspect that the SKYPE installation is causing this problem. But I don't where to start. His computer is an E-Machine, probably with the MO sound system. This problem manifests itself with his regular speakers and the Logitech camera microphone as well as a headset with earphones and a mike. So the problem is not with his audio IO devices, I believe. We both have a WXP OS. Anybody with an idea? William Lockie

William Lockie, SWAG, several things come to mind, but the main one is buffering due to lack of USABLE memory. A common ailment is a file called 'index.dat'. It gets read every time and can take quite a while if it’s too bloated. It's like a log file and keeps a record of every site you visit on the web. Empty, it's 32K, but it can grow HUGE. It's a protected file and can't be deleted by normal methods. CCleaner (free @: http://www.ccleaner.com/) can get rid of it when it’s ticked (not to worry, it gets rebuilt EMPTY on the next boot.). HTH. Ed in Texas.