i get choppy or scratchy sound when i try to play any kind of audio even windows default sounds. i started noticing the sound after a long time, after i installed all the critical windows updates. i installed the udpates to remove 3 viruses namely W32.Spybot.Worm, W32.Randex.gen, W32.Explet.A@mm. now im not exactly sure whether it happened due to the updates or not. i have uninstalled/reinstalled audio drivers using the cd too. tweaked the volume controls even in the nvidia control panel, ive used several known working headphones and speakers. the preferred device in sound and audio devices is nvidia nforce audio codec. no scratchy/choppy sound in safe mode. while trying to update the audio drivers from the nvidia website, the system restarts abruptly and shows a bang for the audio driver in device manager and is also not digitally signed. so i had to reinstall the drivers using the windows xp drivers or the nvidia nforce drivers cd again. system restore not possible coz i had to disable it to remove the viruses. i even installed the windows update for the nvidia audio drivers. i dont want to do a format and reinstallation yet coz i dont know whether its a software or a hardware problem. can anyone plz help me with this!!! PS: My exact system specifications are in my signature. My System Specifications :- Processor : AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (1.7Ghz) Motherboard : ASUS A7N266-VM/SE Memory : 256MB DDR Video : Nvidia 64MB Geforce4 MX 440 Sound : Onboard Nvidia nforce Audio OS : Windows XP Professional (with SP1)

Still sounds to me like a driver related issue? You may update all your drivers and see if that helps. Usualy choppy sound equals bad driver.

ive tried updating the drivers twice. at first i tried updating all the nforce chipset drivers to solve the problem. all drivers were getting updated except when it started updating the audio drivers, the system abruptly restarted. the next time, i only tried updating the audio drivers, and it again abruptly restarted putting a bang in device manager for the audio driver. while manually trying to update the driver, it gave a windows incompatibility error. even then i continued anyway but still no use. hence i had to reinstall the original drivers which were digitally signed. My System Specifications :- Processor : AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (1.7Ghz) Motherboard : ASUS A7N266-VM/SE Memory : 256MB DDR Video : Nvidia 64MB Geforce4 MX 440 Sound : Onboard Nvidia nforce Audio