Sound Loss

Howdy, All,

I've had an issue now for some time and I can't find a solution.

I run IE7 on Vista Ultimate, and after some amount of time, it can stop
making the "click" noise when I click on a link. It's a bit irregular; I only
visit a few sites, though I sometimes get a vague feeling that it's only
certain sites and not others. Almost always, if I shut down IE7 and bring it
right back up, the sound effect comes back immediately. At the moment, I
can't recall if the whole system is affected or just IE; I think just IE.

However, if I'm also running iTunes, the problem occurs much more quickly.
but if I'm just running iTunes, it also happens. Sometimes shutting down one
or the other fixes the problem. Often, however, I'm forced to reboot, and in
these situations, the problem is system wide.

I've got all my updates, drivers included, and right now, sound lost for the
system, Device Manager shows everything is working fine, but even "Test" is
failing to produce any sound.

Last night, I had no apps running (well, at some point virus check (AVG) and
Windows Defender--but I don't think these are the problem at all), and I put
in a CD and looped it to have some nice music to fall asleep. So, only iTunes
running, and there we go: no sound, iTunes shows it's playing.

And, i've checked my speaker volume in the System Tray and checked the
speaker knob on my desk speakers.

HELP!!!! :-)

Searching Google and Apple and MS Knowledge Base hasn't turned up anything
yet. I'm tempted to say this might have been after I installed iTunes, but to
be fair, I can't recall if it's always been this way or after I installed
something. Since it's a bit sporadic, it could have been any number of
installs ago.

I hope someone here has had the same problem and can tell me of a fix, or at
least point me in the right direction!

Thanks for any help!

Keith