Strange sound problem in XP.

[Overdrive]

This one is so far defeating me (and others), so any help appreciated.

I'm running Xp Pro', and Sound Blaster surround sound card and software.

Everything is showing as working fine, drivers ok, no issues, conflicts. There has never been a problem with the sound previously. The problem began in isolation, not following any changes or other problems.

I use Skype and Yahoo messengers. A week back, the microphone began to mute itself when placing or answering a Skype call, at the connection of the call. This happens in the Windows Sounds And Devices properties advanced control area of the system; a tick/check can be seen appearing in the "mute" box as the call starts.

Unmuting restores the sound and all then works fine, until the next call. I contacted Skype, and they said things were fine their end. Anyway, the problem then began to affect Yahoo too. Further, the mic has begun occasionally to open unprovoked at system start up, without using messengers or starting any task involving sound.

Any ideas?

[Parapunter]

Creative software & drivers are usually ok, unless of course you run an o/s from this century. It is possible that along with your Creative software & drivers bundle you have auto update installed or that your windows update has loaded a new driver/software onto the system.

You could try to roll back to the previous driver or even uninstall your soundcard, run cc cleaner & reinstall it. Should take no more than 30 minutes to do. I'm running an xfi extreme audio & have had to do this repeatedly in Vista & windows 7, just to get the bugger working.

[Overdrive]

That's an idea Parapunter. I did reinstall and clean everything up, but there have been a couple of Windows updates before and since. Never known them cause this sort of trouble though in Xp. I'll take a look