Hi, I have an Abit KT7A motherboard with an Athlon CPU and I currently have a Soundblaster Live installed. I've had this soundcard for about 4-5 years and have had no problems until the past week or so. I've noticed that the sound will sporatically cut out from one channel to the other channel without any notice. Furthermore, if the computer has been on for a long period of time (about 8 hours or more) then everytime a sound is played there is a high pitched screeching noise coming from the speakers. I have checked the audio cable connections several times, I have tried reinstalling the Creative drivers from their website. I am wondering if my Soundblaster is on its death bed or not? Or is there another cause to the problem that I can check? Here are my system specs if they are of any help: Case: Standard ATX case with 350/w AMD certified power supply (110v) Motherboard: Abit KT7A NON-RAID CPU: Athlon 1200Mhz Hard Drive: 120 gig Western Digital 7200rpm 8 meg cache Video: PNY Geforce4 Ti4200 Ethernet card: SMC EZ1211TX PCI CDROM: 52x I/O Magic CDRW: 52x24x252x Lite-on Floppy drive: standard 3.5" Keyboard: 104-key PS/2 Mouse: Logitech Optical USB mouse Printer: Canon S750 Scanner: Epson Perfection 600U Monitor: Viewsonic VX900 LCD Soundcard: Soundblaster Live Value UPS: APC 400va UPS Cable modem: Toshiba PCX1100U (RoadRunner) Webcam: Philips Webcam with microphone Btw, the sound is connected through the pre-amp to my stereo system, thus there are no computer speakers involved in the setup. However, I can connect headphones to the soundcard directly and the problem still occurs. Thanks for the help, David