Ok the only thing that has changed on my system is I added an external HDD enclosure housing an IDE HDD. I'm running Windows Vista Home PREMIUM and now I'm getting this error saying:

BadDirect Sound driver. Please install proper drivers or select another device in configuration.
Error code: 88780078

Any one have any ideas? In device manager it says that my sound drivers are fine and when I update them it says Windows has determined I have the most recent ones. This only happened after adding the HDD enclosure via USB hookup. This is a Winamp error. Any ideas are appreciated. Thanks.First thing is that although Winamp has great INTERFACE, the older version have been known to experience many errors. The new versions MAY still contain some of these bugs so I suggest that you reinstall winamp first then if it persists, look in winamp preferences and find out which sound devices that it is PLAYING off of. Hopefully that helps.Is it by any chance Realtek on-board sound?Yes it is. I have the problem resolved now. All I did was unplugged my speakers and rebooted without them, then plugged them BACK in again.

Some Vista fun. very weird for me ???unbelievable solution, congratulations.... Nice...
I'd call it Realtek problem, though...terrible hardware.