.wav, .mp3 files are distorted

Recently, all sound, from the windows xp startup jingle to my mp3s all are
distorted to some degree.
I even played the wav and midi files in the folder,C:\windows\media. They
all play with distortion.
What on earth could be causing this. I can't do a system restore as the
restore points were corrupted and I had to delete them.
All connections are ok and the headphones and speakers are ok.

Any ideas, anyone?

Open device mgr,expand the sound tree,locate & R.click the sound hardware
one at a time,select "uninstall" w/o restarting,once thru,close out device,
restart pc.If you have a pci sound card,select to shutdown,power-off,move the
card to other pci slot,restart pc.XP will reinstall on restart.Also,if
problems
persist,go to run,typeXDIAG Run the Direct X audio tests..

"cuppajava" wrote:

> Recently, all sound, from the windows xp startup jingle to my mp3s all are
> distorted to some degree.
> I even played the wav and midi files in the folder,C:\windows\media. They
> all play with distortion.
> What on earth could be causing this. I can't do a system restore as the
> restore points were corrupted and I had to delete them.
> All connections are ok and the headphones and speakers are ok.
>
> Any ideas, anyone?
>