Audio distorted in XP

You may experience stutter, echo, or distorted sound on your PC if the hardware acceleration is not set correctly. To experience good audio quality, adjust the hardware acceleration slider for speaker in the Device Manger by following these steps:

1. Click Start and then Control Panel.
2. Click Sounds and Audio Devices.
3. Under Speaker settings, click Advanced.
4. Click the Performance tab.
5. Change the Hardware Acceleration slider's position.
NOTE: The slider can be positioned from "none" to "full" depending on the usage.
6. Click Apply and OK.

Repeat steps 5 & 6 till you get optimum audio performance.

1. Right-click My Computer.
2. Select Properties, Click Hardware, then Click Device Manager.
3. Expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers node.
4. Double-click the controller for Primary IDE Channel and Secondary IDE channel (if any) and select properties option on each device driver.
5. Click the Driver tab.
6. Click Uninstall.
7. When the process completes, restart your computer.

Then IDE controllers will be reinstall be default by Microsoft Windows XP Operating system.