Vista - USB Headset Distortion Suddenly Showed Up

I have a new Acer Aspire One, with the 11" screen, Atom processor, 2GB Ram, Vista Basic, etc. It is fast, and runs beautifully.

I have suddenly noticed a sudden deterioration in the quality of sound in my Nexxtech USB headset (earphones and microphone).

When used on Skype or to listen to music in Winamp, the quality is now terrible. Previously, it was excellent.

Sound from the laptop speakers and from the 3 mm output jack is just fine.

For short periods, the sound is great, then it distorts -- sometimes to the point of unintelligibility -- with cracking sounds like the effects of overdriving. This is not dependant on the volume, however and comes and goes regardless of the output level or the loudness or quietness of the audio passage at the moment

Oddly, when I right click on the speaker icon in the system tray and choose to open "Recording Devices", the sound almost clears up as long as the box is open, even if I do nothing at all in the box. (????) The problem becomes much less, and I only detect an occasional few clicks as long as the box is open.

When I close the box, the problem resumes.

Of course, I have been installing the software I routinely use, and everything works well, except for this problem. I am not sure what I installed and when, but I wonder if it has something to do with Smplayer. Everything was just fine after I installed it, but maybe something changed after a reboot. The reason I pick on this one is that there was a reference on another site to OpenGL drivers problems. May be it has nothing to do with the problem.

I thought to uninstall the headphones so that the drivers would reinstall, and have looked in the Device Manager and notice that the headphones appear and disappear when plugged in and out. I selected "update drivers", and although so often there is no update, they updated. Still the problem continues. Nexxtech has driver updates for their products on their site, but my 2616404 headset is not listed as far as I can see.

I suspect some conflict or bad driver.

Anyone have a solution?