I bought this sound card and it just arrived today. I hooked up everything and installed the software as well as the new drivers. The problem is that all my audio playback is pops, white noise, and miscellaneous sounds; this happens on everything from mp3s to normal window sounds. The manual is of no help and the Hercules website is pretty useless.

I am running this on an HP Pavilion 522c and didn't install any of the other software besides that which the sound card requires. This is annoying, and I've exhausted the usual culprits.

Do you have onboard audio? If yes, have you got the previous drivers uninstalled and the onboard audio disabled via jumper settings or BIOS?

Otherwise...
Also make sure you have the latest drivers installed. Sometimes pops and white noises may be caused by driver problems.

I figured it out after a few dozen cycles of starting, restarting, and restoring the computer. The problem was driver related; although the procedure to get it all straightened out after installing the wrong was more complicated than it would have been to install the most up to date ones to begin with.