Update...

I de-fraged <sp> the HDD and it was a total mess. That helped the boot time and the PC seems to run a little quicker but it had no affect on the Audio problem. I then let the PC cool down and booted it again and opened the Setup. I went to the hardware Power section and looked at the CPU power voltages. Only one of them was a constant value. The rest changed every second. I watched them for five minutes and they stopped changing as much but they were still not stable. I continued the boot process and the audio card functioned properly. I repeated this sequence with the same results...

So... I am even more convinced that it is a PSU problem. Shouldn't the voltages be constant?
Here is what I saw:

CPU Vcore from 1.36v to 1.4v
3.3V was 3.32 and seemed stable
12.0v ranged from 11.91 to 11.97v
Battery 2.96 to 3.0
5 VSB 4.96 to 5.02

None of these are way off but I think they should have been stable. Is this a sign that the supply is failing?

What are your thoughts?

Gale


Mr. G