I'm having a problem with my sound. Any sound and music is very distorted, and has a series of beeps and STUFF mixed in. It's kind of hard to explain. One day I was PLAYING Oblivion and it just started doing that. I tried reinstalling my sound driver, but that didn't change anything. I was wondering, is it possible that, since I'm using integrated sound, the PART of the motherboard responsible for sound could have some how burned out? Would buying a cheap sound card possibly fix the problem and restore my sound? Any thoughts why I'm getting this annoying background noise, so bad that I have to turn sound off? Any help/ideas will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.An inexpensive card should rectify the problem as onboard is disabled when installing an add on card is done.
How old is this machine ? ?
Might be worth your while to remove an access panel and ensure all fans are in working order.
Heat Kills.a simple thing but has the input cable plug came out of the socket, even a little bit can cause faulty connections and sound. also download a new set of codecs from here:-

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/format/codecdownload.aspx

or here:-  http://www.free-codecs.com/

what is the motherboard ? it might be worth it to go to the company web site and download drivers for the mobo.
can you not borrow sound card and put it in to see if there is any improvement.Well I've already tried reinstalling the drivers that it came with, and they worked fine before, but the board is a gigabyte 915g chipset, thats all I can remember off the top of my headSo this means what in relation to the problem ? ?
Have you installed a sound card to see if the problem is solved ? ?
If you need to get a sound card - and I believe that may be the ultimate solution here - but you don't want to spend much, take a look at CHAINTECH AV-512 5.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail.  I've had one of these for about two years now and have had no PROBLEMS with it.  I've used a mic with it and also converted some music tapes to digital files by connecting the Phone out connector on my stereo unit to the Line In port on the sound card.Ok so I haven't tried PUTTING a sound card in yet, because I don't have one to try in it unless I buy one. So how sure are you guys that getting a sound card in there will fix the problem? If more than one person thinks this will be the best way to fix this I'll go ahead and get that 10 dollar sound card. Any other opinions on this?Can you borrow some speakers to try?Well I have tried different speakers, and I even tried my speakers on my friend's computer and they worked fine on it, but my friend's speakers had the same crappy effects on my computer. Still puzzled but I haven't bought a sound card yet, I want to be sure theres not another way to fix it first.

Check your device manager for errors & warnings.
I assume you have re-booted during this mess.
Are you 100% sure you installed the correct drivers?
Have you tried the most up to date drivers from the manufacturer's website?

Download, unzip, install and run Everest Home Edition
Everest

Select Computer>Summary from the left hand screen.
Right click in the right hand screen & select Copy All
Paste the details in here.