On-Board AC97 Soundcard gone wrong! Please help!

Hey everyone, this is my first post here and though my problem to me doesn't seem 'urgent', it is one of the most annoying problems I've ever had with my computer:

THE PROBLEM:

My speakers and headphones distort sound when it is played - If it is music it is distorted every second. It slows down (Noticable but doesn't affect the music) and splits up the sounds, making it sound like thunder is rolling over the sky in the distance)

It's really annoying and occurs when anything is played; Microphone convosations, Games, Movies, Music, people signing on and off MSN and other chat mediums.

My question is this; Is it worth splashing out such and such an ammount of money on a non on-board soundcard, or is there a solution?

The problem has occured since I reformatted my PC:

When I went to install all my drivers I realised my dad has lost the Driver Disk that came with the PC when we bought it. As a result I had to nick a network card from an old PC we have because we couldn't install the onboard one without the disk. It was the same problem for the sound card but a friend of mine found a download for my sound card on the same website (my PC manufacturers website: eMachines) where it shows information of my motherboard for all the inbuilt things like the network and sound card.

Surely enough my sound works, but not as it should and it's really annoying. I also feel that it's slowing down my computer when loading new windows of ANY sort.

I'll post links below:

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http://www.e4allinc.info/dir1/motherboards/socket478/alaska3.htm - This link goes to the page that displays info on my motherboard and all it's on-board components including AUDIO.

http://www.e4allinc.info/dir1/motherboards/socket478/alaska3_downloads.htm - The Audio driver download on this page is what I got, and my sound is screwing up and for some reason slowing my PC.

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I don't know if it sounds stupid to the experts hear that my sound is making my PC be slow, but I only reformatted it 5 days ago, I don't have KaZaA and I'm using Mozilla Firefox, the only thing I've installed is my games.

Please help me

 

For some reason my microphone isn't working now.

Shame, because I'd record part of a song for you all to listen to how bad it is. It sounds like it's being butchered!! Oh, and just as I clicked Submit reply it went and repeated the same line about 5 times before restoring it to as it was.

Placebo - Days Before You Came is being butchered as I type

 

anyone, please?

 

Thanks it's worked!!!
*Rocks to 'Days Before you Came'*

I wub j00! :O