Hi folks, my families' computer has had a small problem for a while now. I can be using it normally, listening to music, when sound will suddenly stop (including system sounds). I have to restart my computer for it to work properly again... only for the problem to reoccur after a few hours. It's not just the sound that stops though because the slide bar (that tell you how far through the song you are) stays still unless you drag it. It does not play the music or start moving when you drag it to somewhere else. It is as if the music playing has been paused. Although pausing/playing the song does not fix the problem. THE problem also effects videos at the same time. Whilst this problem is occuring (seemingly randomly!), videos on the internet will only play <3 seconds before stopping, all without sound. (by 'stopping' i mean seemingly paused.. as with the music problem) With the videos i can, however, click slightly further ahead on the progress slide bar thing to see (not hear) the next <3 seconds of video. PLEASE HELP! i cannot see any pattern with when this problem starts. Only that it happens quite regularly (about 3 times a day) I play music on iTunes if that has anything to do with it. I'm on XP Home - is it a common problem? any of you have it? I'm not too knowledgable with computers so here is my computers 'Sound, video and game controllers' (taken from Device Manager): Audio Codecs Legacy Audio Drivers Legacy Video Capture Devices Media Control Devices SoundMAX Intergrated Digital Audio Video Codecs Don't know if that will help :P Thanks for taking the time to read Phil

The two things that spring to mind are either sound drivers (software) or the sound card itself (hardware). It is easiest and cheapest first step is to try reloading the sound drivers. You may have a CD for this or you could search for the latest driver using Google. I'm guessing that the video problem arises because of the sound issue. Stick around tho, there might be some other ideas.... DerekW