Sound Stutters resulting Windows freeze

yeah there's little pieces that rarely get picked up by the regular uninstall method, that's why apps like that exist.

edit: tried the sweep thing, then reinstalled the sound card driver. windows froze in the middle of the installation process this time. this sucks!

also i hear static noise coming from the speakers when i enable the sound card.

EDIT: I'VE FIXED MY PROBLEM.


Downloaded Realtek HD Audio Codec from Realtek website
Downloaded the latest driver update for my sound card (compatible for my Win 7)
Reinstalled Win 7 from scratch
Installed Realtek Codec
Installed sound card driver

and voila! No problems so far. No lags, no freezes, no stutters. Audio playing smooth as butter.

Sigh. Well the problem isn't quite over yet....

Last night I set windows to do the necessary updates and went to bed. Woke up and found my PC frozen up.

Restarted windows and it again froze on the main welcome menu (on the "Please Wait" phase). Tried safe mode and it did some updates in the welcome menu and restarted automatically. And this time, again, windows started normally and froze in the welcome menu.

I then went ahead and removed my soundcard and now everything works just fine. Went in Device Manager and saw instead of two "HD Audio Device" there is one HD Audio Device and one new ATI HD Audio Device. Like one got replaced or something.

edit:

I have reinstalled the updated driver for my soundcard again. But now I get static noise instead of sound. No freezes so far though.

Okay you have too many sound devices active.
The ati one only needs to be working if you are using a hdmi cable and use sound from your tv/monitor.
Otherwise it can be safely disabled.
Just right click the speaker icon in the tray choose playback devices
Select the ati item on the list, click properties and use the drop down to disable it.
I would do this for all the audio items in that list except the one you are currently using.
This should prevent future conflicts.

Windows updates are generally security related so it is best to grab them.

You really should disable the audio devices you aren't using, or you are just asking for future problems.