Vista - Sound issues

I am using Vista Ultimate and having a strange sound issue.

When i first start up the computer, all the sounds work perfectally. From
there i go into media player and start to randomly select songs to play, this
works fine for a little while. After a little while i will select another
track, media player opens the file but won't play it. I can click on the play
button and move the track position slider around, but it just wont play the
song. When this happens, all other sounds stop working as well, including the
windows sounds.

This problem will also happen if i am using Itunes or even borwsing websites
that have audio content.

The only way i have found to work around this problem is to close anything
that could be trying to use the sound device, then go to the sounds settings
in control panel and configure the "speakers" (btw im using a SoundMAX
intergrated digital audio) set it to mono click test then select stereo and
click test. Sometimes when i do this i get a message telling me that
something is using the sound device. Once i have finished this procedure,
everything works fine for a while until the next time.

I have also unchecked the box for allowing apps to take exclusive control of
the device but this didn't appear to do anything.

If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Peter

Your only answer is going to be a better sound driver.

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Mark L. Ferguson

"Peter Bayliss" <Peter Bayliss@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:0A90275C-00E1-44DB-8678-0C927EEAA7E4@xxxxxx