Octopus Overlords

I've got me a Hercules Muse 5.1 DVD sound card. It's been running fine for a long time. However, I recently installed Half-Life 2, and the sound was choppy. So I went to update my sc driver, but when I did Windows gave me a message that said 'This driver has not been verified and may cause problems with WinXP now or in the future' (or something to that effect). Of course, it did cause problems. I had to go into safe mode and remove my sc driver. Now, when I got to install the driver from the CD, I'm having random crashes. I got the driver installed, fired up HL2, and about two minutes into the game my screen flickered, bringing me to the dos boot screen.

I'm sure that the driver is what's causing my problems, because since I have uninstalled them (I am currently without sound) I haven't had one problem.

Anyone else had problems with the Muse 5.1 DVD sound card? Anyone got any suggestions? I'm kinda stumped, and wondering if I don't just have a bogus piece of hardware, and it's time to upgrade...

Word.

Yeeeeeah. So, I tried again this morning to install a driver for my Muse 5.1 sc. In the driver wizard, I told it to automatically retrieve and install the driver. Adding to my frustration, when the driver installs I am notified that "A new piece of hardware has been found" (a game controller) and my internet gets killed. I have to uninstall the driver (in safe mode, because my computer gets very sluggish after install) for my internet to return......WTF!?!?!?!

I am so confused...help?

I think sound chopping is a problem with HL2 itself. Check here for some advice:
http://www.csnation.net/viewnews.php/7648/

Ya know, I think that must be it. I finally got my sound back with the updated driver, and HL2 still sounds kinda choppy. I'm glad I didn't have to replace my sound card, though.

Thanks for the link.