okay, so i'm seriously having something close to a panic attack right now. i was listening to music on headphones. it was ill music "dj format" or something. i wantd to share it with my friend in the room here so i unplugged the headphones. it played for about 30 seconds.

then.

the apocalypse. the speakers just stopped playing it. it sounded like it was being played out of a tin can.

when i plugged the headphones back in, nothing played through them.

i think my sound card is busted or something. does anybody know anything about what this might be? about what i can do?

i seriously have no other way to play music

Did you try the ol' reboot?

i can't afford a reboot right now, i'm supposed to be working on a 10 page paper

Something similar happened to me last year. I was just using WMP through decent speakers to play music at college then one day it just started distorting badly. It sounded so bad I thought the computer was going to explode. It seems though that some viruses I'd got due to virus protection stuff through the network also suddenly stopping were messing with Media Player.

Luckily, I've got a 40gig iriver I can hook up to the speakers so all isn't lost, but it's a pain in the arse. Especially since I now also can't play DVDs without the sound stuffing up.

So, you might want to check whether it's just whatever program you're using to play music? I'm no computer whiz, so beyond that I've got nothing.

it would seem that if the music is still playing, its playing on the integrated (not to mention, awful) sound on your motherboard/sound card (depending on whether you have a sound card or not). the first plan of action, even though it would seem you cant, would be to reboot, so the bios can re-initialize everything. if theres something really wrong, the bios will probably say something.

maybe a reboot would be good for my paper writing. it would end this chat at least.

you need some distractions. i am goint out for drinks and some dinner instead of studying for my final tomorrow. hell, its not 80 degrees on May 4th very often around here (never)

yeah but the paper is due tomorrow. this is my distraction. i need to be not distracted.