Compaq Presario audio CD burning issue

Hi folks

I wonder if anyone can help. I've a Compaq Presario SR1109UK desktop PC running under Win XP service pack 2 with 256 meg of Ram and a 2.33 Ghz processor (I think) and recently it's developed some issues when burning audio CDs. Basically I can burn a disc using either Real Player, Windows Media Audio or Philips Musicmatch and the burn will be successful, finalising the disc.

Even though the source material - usually MP3s - are distortion-free, when I come to play the CD either on the PC or a standard CD player, the whole disc is distorted and the sound quality abysmal. I've tried burning with different programs and at different burn speeds - sometimes as low as 4x - but it makes no difference. For one project I've used about five blank CDs so far to try to get a clean copy so this is becoming expensive!

Any ideas would be gratefully received. To make things more interesting, this seems to be an intermittent fault as other audio CDs burn well with no probs.

Cheers.