Okay guys, I don't know much about computers and I'm seeking major help.

Problem #1:
For some reason, whenever I play a cd in my cd-rom drive, the sound is all distorted. I don't have this problem when I play a music or sound file on my computer, it's just sound coming in from a cd that is screwed up. Anyone have any ideas on this?

Problem #2:
I had the Sims on my computer last year, and it was working just fine. Then one day it stopped working, and it would just no longer load. There weren't any crazy circumstances surrounding this, it just stopped working one day. I tried uninstalling it and reinstalling it. What happens is that the game installs fine, and when I go to play it, it will load fine, but as soon as it finishes loading, the screen goes away, and I'm back at my desktop like nothing ever happened. This happens with any other game I try to load from a cd, so it's not just the cd itself.

Problem #3:
I keep getting the following message popping up every couple hours or so:

SL1C.tmp - Common Language Runtime Debugging Services
Application has generated an exception that could not be handled.
process id=0xdf0 (3568), thread id=0xf20 (3872)
Click Ok to terminate the application
Click cancel to debug the application

And when I click "Cancel," it tells me that the JIT Debugger cannot be found. What's going on?

Anyone who can help me with any of these problems is a rock star, and will have my inexhaustable gratitude. Thanks!!!

Which Windows version do you use please? These do not seem to be symptoms of a 'dead machine' but instead symptoms of a confuzzled Windows installation. I'll move it to the appropriate section and kick the ball off with suggestions when I find out which section is the appropriate one

I have Windows XP. Thanks!

Then I would suggest a refresh intall of Windows:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...&Product=winxp

followed by a reinstall of the motherboard chipset drivers and the display drivers.

I don't even really know what that means. I'm pretty dumb about this kind of thing. I'm sure it has something to do with drivers, because every time I restart the computer I get a little error message saying that Windows has disabled some of my drivers because of my cd recording software.

I have the version of Roxio that came with my computer, and I had an old version that I put on my computer also because it lets you make jewel case inserts. Maybe that old version is what screwed it up. Anyway, I took that version off, but nothing is fixed.

Was that old version Adaptec Easy CD Creator? If so, that's definitely what screwed it up. Try the refresh install as suggested and let us know how it goes. Don't worry about the drivers yet.

Also, I just discovered that the error codes change every time I get that error message that I posted.

AND!

Now there is another problem.

Problem #4:
Whenever I open Microsoft Word, it says that it's trying to install something. So I have to click Cancel and then it will bring up Word, but not the document I want, and I have to go through "Open" and bring up the document that way. How can I make it stop trying to install whatever it is it's trying to install?

Yeah, that's what the version was. If I do the refresh install, will I lose anything on my computer? Any files or anything?

I ask because I have a lot of music and a lot of my writing on the computer that I'd rather avoid losing if I can.

Are you able to burn anything to CD? Quite seriously, the best thing to do would be to copy your files to CD, wipe the drive and install everything fresh again.

But a refresh install could fix some of the problems.

I was kinda thinking the same thing. I was just wondering whether the refresh install would cause me to lose any of the files I have on my computer. I'd like to try it and see if it helps until I can back up everything and wipe the hard drive, but I just wanted to see if the refresh install would take anything off in the meantime.