Sound/Playback Stops Working Suddenly

I have recently encountered a very strange problem with my computer: the
sound/playback stops working randomly. For instance, let's say I've just
rebooted my computer and have launched WMP 11 to play some mp3s. It will work
fine for anywhere from a day or two to, at minimum, a few minutes...and then,
once an mp3 file finishes playing, sometimes I will hear a weird sort of
"squeak" coming from the speakers--after which playback will not work--but
even if I do not hear any sort of strange audio, if I click another file to
play...WMP 11 will load the media, but will not play it. The play button will
switch to pause as normal, but the file will not play.

The exact same thing happens in *other* media players, as well: iTunes, J.
River Media Center...even WinAMP.

I have a SoundBlast X-Fi Platinum audio card, and have been running it under
Windows Vista Home Premium since January with no problems. I have all the
current Vista drivers installed for it, and *have* had them installed for
months. I'm really not sure whether this problem is software- or
hardware-related, hence the reason I'm crossposting this to Creative Labs'
SoundBlaster forums as well.

What should my next step be? I'm not really sure where to go from here.

Thank you!

I thought Creative just released Vista-compatible drivers here.... ?

This sounds pretty specifically like a driver issue, since there's not much
else that should be able to cause that net effect. What does Creative say
about this? If you get their new new driver, does that help..... ?

--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--
"Derek C. F. Pegritz" <DerekCFPegritz@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:930CCD78-09D1-4099-B19D-558234D075EA@microsoft.com...
>I have recently encountered a very strange problem with my computer: the
> sound/playback stops working randomly. For instance, let's say I've just
> rebooted my computer and have launched WMP 11 to play some mp3s. It will
> work
> fine for anywhere from a day or two to, at minimum, a few minutes...and
> then,
> once an mp3 file finishes playing, sometimes I will hear a weird sort of
> "squeak" coming from the speakers--after which playback will not work--but
> even if I do not hear any sort of strange audio, if I click another file
> to
> play...WMP 11 will load the media, but will not play it. The play button
> will
> switch to pause as normal, but the file will not play.
>
> The exact same thing happens in *other* media players, as well: iTunes, J.
> River Media Center...even WinAMP.
>
> I have a SoundBlast X-Fi Platinum audio card, and have been running it
> under
> Windows Vista Home Premium since January with no problems. I have all the
> current Vista drivers installed for it, and *have* had them installed for
> months. I'm really not sure whether this problem is software- or
> hardware-related, hence the reason I'm crossposting this to Creative Labs'
> SoundBlaster forums as well.
>
> What should my next step be? I'm not really sure where to go from here.
>
> Thank you!
>
>

"zachd [MSFT]" wrote:

>
> I thought Creative just released Vista-compatible drivers here.... ?
>
> This sounds pretty specifically like a driver issue, since there's not much
> else that should be able to cause that net effect. What does Creative say
> about this? If you get their new new driver, does that help..... ?
>
> --
> Speaking for myself only.
> See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

I thought they had, as well: I had downloaded their *beta* drivers and had
them on hand even before I installed Vista, and then of course downloaded the
official X-Fi Vista drivers the moment I was informed they were released.

Since I made the above post, I removed the drivers, redownloaded them (just
in case there was an incremental upgrade that I somehow missed), and
reinstalled them. I've had no problems since then...but I also uninstalled
the two programs that seemed to cause the "sound crashes" most often: Pidgin
2.0 and J. River Media Center 12. I'm really not sure *which* part of the
above actions had anything to do with my sound being fixed, but it *does*
work now just like it used to.

Strange.