Just thought I'd mention -- seems like that C-Media AC'97 driver was causing some problems... Realtek must have put a bad version up there or something. I had used RadarSync to get that same driver and originally there was a problem with the link, but once I let their support know about it they apparently fixed it, b/c i've now downloaded it through RadarSync (http://www.radarsync.com) and all is fine and dandy now on my PC.