[Timbydude]

Hi everyone,

My story is a somewhat long one but I'll try to condense it as best I can. I got my new Alienware m17x (64-bit Vista) about three weeks ago, and it's worked fine except for a little problem involving stuttering; the sound (occassionally accompanied by my video) would stutter every 5-10 seconds sometimes, which got to be very annoying.

So, I installed some new video drivers, updated some other stuff, and found that the stuttering problem still persisted (though my computer was still otherwise fine by this point).

Then, I installed new audio drivers (http://support.dell....3&fileid=331567) followed by Vista Service Pack 2.

Now, the stuttering problem seems to have gone away, but my computer has much worse problems. DVD playback is entirely nonfunctional first of all. Windows Media can't do anything, and PowerDVD plays the DVD at 1/4-1/2 of normal speed with no audio. VLC Player plays it at full speed, but still no audio. DVD playback worked perfectly before these two updates.

Also, iTunes now will not play music. No matter if I double-click a song, single-click it and press play, etc. the time in the song duration will not change, and the song will not play.

In a stranger problem, the opening of Unreal Tournament 3 (and by opening, I mean the part where it shows the logo of every company involved in its production; Epic Games, Intel, etc.) has no sound, while the rest of the game, starting on the main menu, has perfect sound.

I'm worried that I might have to format this computer, which I'd rather avoid. Can someone please help me with this? Thank you very much!