A Poser - Audio plays white noise

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Not sure what's happened here. Yesterday, my system:
XP SP4
Asus mobo - M2N (I think, I just put the CD away...dangit..

1)started playing white noise instead of sounds. Internal, external outputs do the same thing;
just a blast of white noise for as long as the sample is supposed to play.

1a) Ran the troubleshooting wizards (when a Tech does that, you know they're desperate...
Nothing found wrong

2) Tried reloading the driver - no go

3) Tried a restore point - Einstein here forgot to turn that on; well, now isn't a good time to start...

4) Ran Ad-aware (I have been informed that malware companies are now suing all protection companies; so Ad-aware now has to publicly state that they don't scan for a specific company)
Nothing found

5) Tried to go to Computer Cops and Computer Castle; they're both gone (anyone know of any good anti-malware sites still in business?)

5) Ran Hijack this! - didn't see anything unusual there.

6) More stuff - found the CD for the Motherboard, and reloaded the drivers. No change

7) Reloaded Windows Media Player - no change

loaded Winamp - just to check.

9) Interesting fact - when 'playing' a Youtube video, the noise doesn't stop when I hit stop on
the video, but only stops if I leave the page.

I did install 2 more gig of memory, but the sound problem started before that.

I suspect one of the codecs might be corrupted? The audio card and media player should have at least put the basic ones back. However, every sound (from 'dinks' to Youtube) does the same thing. So anything from .wav on up seems to be affected.

If this sounds familiar, and you have a fix (or know someone who might) I'd be interested.
Also, the idea of Malware companies successfully hitting sites with 'cease and desist' orders tends to make my skin crawl...

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/27/1624220

Have you tried running dxdiag.exe (the DirectX diagnostic) to see what it reports?

This sounds like it might be a bona fide hardware fault. Pretty rare, but they do happen.

Did the problem first appear after a power-on (or bringing the system out of sleep/hibernation)? Or after you plugged something in? Or touched something? I don't know your location, but static electricity can be a killer in the winter months.

Maybe another poster can provide something more helpful.

Good luck.

I don't remember - Peter Gabriel...

Actually, NC is just fall-like weather. I think it's actually a virus, but I couldn't imagine someone doing something that benign...unless they're in Zen mode or something.

10) I pulled out the utilities for the motherboard; everything is reporting just fine as far as hardware. I'll check dxdiag, and see what comes up...or doesn't

11) Ran dxdiag, and all of the tests 'passed' in that yes, sound was coming out, but there seems to be no provision for 'it's white noise'. In that sense 'epic fail'...

I'll drop by the ASUS site and see if there's anything there...at least anything I can afford...

12) Dropped by the Asus site, downloaded the audio patch for the mobo - no effect.

I guess I'd better look at M2N-SL1 prices...sigh...

unless I've missed something.
thanks.

Have you tried just plugging in a live CD - to check if the problem is hardware or XP?

hmm...I don't have any live CDs, but I have a live DVD...let's go see...
...ay...that didn't work. It doesn't even recognize the files. Long story.
I don't have a CD to use; had to sell them all last year.
I'm halfway considering putting Ubuntu on, booting with that, and seeing if that makes a difference.

Well, BartPE alone won't do, you'll also need XP Embedded to use sound with a live CD.

If your Linux LiveCD/DVD recognize your sound card/chip, just prepare an uncompressed .wav in Windows first.

oh that kinda live CD...

we are not smart...

I have Knoppix, Redhat, and Ubuntu (but an older version) Worth a shot. I'll try it when I get a chance....thanks everyone...