Sound Card or Speakers?

[aplefka]

Ever since installing and playing the game Need For Speed Underground, something on my sound has been off. Originally it was fine, then, in the middle of a race I blew out my old PSU and somehow that messed up my hard drive too. So I took a spare hard drive that was reformatted and empty besides the OS, and installed NFSU on there. Ever since this second install, the sound quality of pretty much everything has sucked hardcore.

I'm not sure if it's the sound card or the speakers, but my guess is it's the sound card because regardless of if I'm using my headset or the speakers, I get the same crackle-quality. I've tried turning down the various tabs on the volume panel, but that hasn't had much of an effect. If something has too much bass or is turned up past a certain point it sucks. I've got onboard sound so is it possible that maybe something happened to the mobo when I fried my PSU?

Sorry the post is so long, but if you've read this far, thanks. So do you think I should buy a new sound card or what?

 

[aplefka]

*bump*

Anyone got any ideas at all?

 

[oneshot47]

You said you used a hd that was empty besides the os...did you ever install the sound card drivers? I dont know if that will help but its worth a shot.

 

[stevty2889]

It's possible the motherboard was damaged when the PSU blew, it could have done some damage to the motherboard since you said it took out a hard drive when it blew.

 

[aplefka]

Oneshot: No, I never did download sound card drivers, but it's an onboard sound card, so where would I go to download the drivers? It's an ECS mobo.

Stevty: It didn't completely take out the hard drive, but something happened so that it only reads it as an 8 gig hd instead of an 80 gig hd. And I can't reformat it or anything. So you've got a possible correct answer.

Thanks for the help, I'll look into drivers and other happenings of my sort.