[seamusoldfield]

About two months ago I unplugged a USB cable from the front USB jack on my computer and it made the standard Windows "thunk" sound that it always does when I unplug peripherals. But this time the "thunk" sound crackled and really just did not sound good.

Now I'm no fool and take reasonable care when plugging and unplugging things in, but it definitely didn't like what I did.

From then on the sound crackles and is horribly distorted anytime I try and run anything on the computer. Meaning this: if I'm playing music and try and open Word, an Internet page, anything, the sound will crackle, skip, etc. until the program has finished loading.

I've never had this problem on any computer before. Could it be related to the USB cord removal or something entirely different? Thanks for any help you can offer.