The sound driver on this motherboard has been corrupted by a bad software install. Now it is very distorted under XP, W7 and also Linux. Reflash of BIOS and reload of sound drivers hasn't helped. It looks as if there might be double anti-phase drivers present as the L-R controls behave very oddly - the sound is best at 25% and 75% L-R balance and worst at 50-50 and there's no stereo image at all.