Ok, Windows Updates had been shut off by Tune Up Utilities; turned it on and after about 60 updates later I tried all of the above again and voila, sounds back on and no lagging to boot. Hopefully the last you'll hear from little old me... We'll see...
Problem has started again up again. I was making music so had the external Edirol soundcard outputting audio. All was fine until after I finished, disconnected laptop from card, little red 'x' back with a vengeance. Any ideas short of reinstalling Windows will be gratefully received. On that topic, would a clean reinstall of Windows usually resolve this type of nonsense?
No because it seems like you had found a solution but other software has caused the issue to occur again, so it looks like a problem with your software and I think it would just happen again eventually, even with a fresh install.
You need to rectify what is causing it with some careful documenting of your processes.
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