No sound/scratchy sound

I am currently running XP Home. This morning I was online playing a Java based game when the sound started to get scratchy and then became inaudible. I could sort of hear if I turned the speakers all the way up,. but it still sounds scratchy. So, I decided to restart to see if that cleared the problem. I noticed that when the system shut down and started back up that I could hear THOSE sounds perfectly. But I don't know why I can't hear anything once my desktop shows up. Any suggestion? Oh, and I tried using the "Windows Sound Troubleshooter", but I can't get it to open. Thanks you in advance for any assistance you can offer as this is officially driving me NUTS!!

I have no idea whats going on, but what I would suggest is to get the latest drivers for the sound and chipset and install them, see if that helps.

I have no idea whats going on, but what I would suggest is to get the latest drivers for the sound and chipset and install them, see if that helps.

I already did that (as far as the drivers for the sound), and it didn't fix it at all. Bear in mind I am a total computer idiot – so I have no idea how to find the driver for the chipset (hell, I don't even know what a chipset is).

Any suggestions??

The chipset is a part of the motherboard, so you would need to go to the makers site of that board, select your board from the list and download the chipset drivers from there, bare in mind if this is a vista system install via right click and select run as admin, any other system install as normal, but disable real time protection (eg anti virus and anti spyware) because these can sometimes affect the install, so right click on the relevant icons by the clock and select exit\pause etc, a simple reboot will load them again. As a last thought try uninstalling the soundcard and reboot, then let it auto install again, see if that helps reset this, to uninstall go into the control panel and launch the device manager, if in xp this is under System - Hardware Tab, expand the audio section and right click on each option in turn, select uninstall and when prompted to reboot say no, now repeat for each that will allow this, any that do not offer this option l;eave it be and move onto the next, when complete reboot and let the system auto install it again, and see if this has made any difference.

The chipset is a part of the motherboard, so you would need to go to the makers site of that board, select your board from the list and download the chipset drivers from there, bare in mind if this is a vista system install via right click and select run as admin, any other system install as normal, but disable real time protection (eg anti virus and anti spyware) because these can sometimes affect the install, so right click on the relevant icons by the clock and select exit\pause etc, a simple reboot will load them again.
As a last thought try uninstalling the soundcard and reboot, then let it auto install again, see if that helps reset this, to uninstall go into the control panel and launch the device manager, if in xp this is under System - Hardware Tab, expand the audio section and right click on each option in turn, select uninstall and when prompted to reboot say no, now repeat for each that will allow this, any that do not offer this option l;eave it be and move onto the next, when complete reboot and let the system auto install it again, and see if this has made any difference.

Is there any way of finding out who is the mfg. of my motherboart without having to physically open the machine? I am running Windows XP.

Yes there are a few ways, Everest is my preferred way, in all the years I've used it I have not found it get it wrong, but the last free version is pretty old now so newer systems aren't covered, and info about them is limited due to this.
An alternate that many like to this is System Information for Windows, it's a great source of info, but I just don't like it as much as I did Everest, although there are several other probable ways you can go, I'll list just 1 more, it is an online scan from PC Pitstop that does a very good job at telling a lot of info about your system, and even how it rates against similar systems, and the best bit is if you sign up (which is free) you can save the scan and post the link and people can also look at the results of the scan and offer advice, it also has tips on what\how to improve, and it even tells you if you have outdated drivers, so use any of these and they should all tell you whatever you need, hope that helps.