Problem with my sound/soundcard. Possible trojan or virus?

Im having a strange problem with my computer. Whenever sound is playing through a game or mp3s whatever every once in a while my computer will freeze and the speakers make a high pitched screaming noise, and after about 30-234.2 seconds it will kick back in and be normal again. also it has a tendancy to happen at about 12am central time thats why i think its a trojan. Well im running xppro and i run virus scan every week so its not a virus or trojan im sure.. heh i always assume the worst.. its probably my sound card drivers. anyways thanks for the help. It was just strange because this never has happened before.

A trojan/virus sounds a possibility, but not cos it's doing that directly (bit of an odd thing for a virus to do).

What it sounds like to me is something grabbing CPU time away from the sound engine. the card is probably looping whatever the last given sound was until it gets more commands. Run a virus scan (cos that's always a good idea), but also make sure you don't have any stuff scheduled to happen at that time (like a scan by your anti-virus software... you do have antivirus software dont you? :P )

Otherwise, it's just coincidence that it happens at that time, and your soundcard drivers are fubar. Reinstall.

Otherwise, your sound card isn't generic enough. Get a more mainstream one.

Those are my best guesses... :)

unlikely to be a trojan, although i could be wrong. Most probably something is scheduled to run at 12 central time and its taking up the CPU so the sound card is looping whatever was last played. So check the scheduler if there is anything to run at that time.

If u really think its a trojan then u should scan your system with the latest definition and see if anything is detected. Also check your system for anything that seems out of the ordinary.

One other thing you can do is to check whatever processes are running and compare that to what is running at the time that it happens and you will be able to point out the rogue process and check up what it does.

If you're not on a dsl/isdn/cable etc., it's probably not a trojan, as most are only set to a schedule if the infected user has dialup access, and is expected to be online at xxx time. Also, what OS are you running? I'm assuming WinXP of some sort just because you didn't specify, but more info is better :)

Corn

I used to have a similar problem.

Click on the task scheduler which I suspect you have running on your machine (icon on systray)

Check for defrag and scandisk running at 12:00

Hope this helps.

First expect to find this thread relocated.. into hardware..

OK.. now eliminate some thing..

Follow the advice given above..summerised below..But it would have helped if you had read the thread I mention later b4 posting..

1/ reinstall the soundcard drivers, better yet check for updates and install them if any..
2/ reinstall or update your directX (but be bloody careful if it is to DX9.. recommend to only DX8.1a.. if you have GF4 or earlier vidcard)
3/ this could also be placed at 1.. dissable all un-needed programs from your startup..
4/ as per mark's comment..(BTW Marrk..you beat me to the post..).. you probably have a daily schedualed AV scann, HDD defrag, or some other CPU/HDD intensive task.

on the third point.. you probably have a clean system.. and you do know what you are looking at.. this is more for the ppl who are still learning..

i am assuming your operating system here is Windoze most likly Win XP..

Read this thread , follow the steps above re-read this thread and please post back.

Then we can be more specific in helping you find the source of the problem.. hardware, software or viral..

Cheers