audio pops/clicks in new XP install

[Gees]

I'm hoping, with the abundance of knowledgable people, here someone may know a fix for this. :c)

Recently made the big leap from ME to XP - installed on a separate drive (dual boot) - only to find that ALL sound comes through with crackling and popping.

My main concern is the crackle/pop is picked up in any vhs digitisations I now try to do and is very frustrating because I had a perfect working system in the (flawed for other reasons) ME OS and moved on to XP for the obvious other advantages.

I've been on hundreds of sites with hundreds more (supposed) fixes ranging from silly (lower volume, add a start-up sound) to extreme (bios changes, etc.) But the large number of posts elsewhere says it's a common problem for a lot of people when switching to XP.

I've eliminated a lot of possibilites with video & sound card swaps, and testing different combinations of cards in each OS, lowering hardware acceleration, checking irq's, etc. and the problem persists only in XP in every scenario.

It's a new XP install, no new codecs besides Huffy, no WMP9, no new progs. Any audio, no matter what format, crackles, pops and has static that is definitely not in the original sound/video files.

Any input or shared experience with this would really be appreciated.

P4 1.7
512 ram
3D Blaster FX5200 ultra (tried other GeForce cards too)
Sounblaster Live (tried Audigy too)
ME & XP

[defense]

very simple question...have you at ANY TIME "OVER CLOCKED' YOUR PC? If so, that is a very good possibility to what your problem is. I had a very similar issue months ago when I "INTENSELY" OC'd my system...I took my P4 2.4 ghz processor to close to 3 ghz. They system became unstable but OPERABLE....problems were with audio crackling/popping as well as some video issues...but the audio was most noticeable. AFter some tweaking I decided to stay at a safe 2.7ghz OC.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Have you updated the soundcard drivers?

[Gees]

Thanks for the replies.

I have not overclocked. I have installed the latest drivers - for both sound and video cards, rolled back to older drivers, gone back to recent drivers.

Last night we pulled the Creative soundcard and replaced it with a cheapo, bare-bones brand. That fixed the XP problem, but now any sound (or video w/sound) file crashes ME completely.

I had read some posts on Creative's site forum that GeForces and Creatives don't live happily together in XP (something about fighting for resources) so we tried the alternate, non-Creative card.

I need a resolution that will work in both OSs. My husband's an avid gamer and some games run better - for whatever reasons - in ME.

This whole issue is the first we have not been able to crack between us. It's made it very tense around here, lately.

Any other ideas sure are welcome.