Windows Media Player 11 Warping the Sound of my MP3s

[garmann]

I've had this happen to me once before. It was bothersome but not so much because i mainly used iTunes for MP3 playback. But now i find i need to use windows media more and more.

When i open an MP3 file it launches media player 11 and starts to play and then within the first few seconds it slows down and drops a slight pitch. It totally warps the sound. After the initial drop it seems OK and steady. It does this on every MP3 and this is not happening on any other computer with the same MP3's nor does it happen in any other player on this same PC. It's really aggravating.

I have media player 11, i just did the SP3 update, It started about 2 weeks ago, I don't remember installing anything new other than updates for my anti-virus, anyDVD and zone alarm. I am on XP Pro and my software build is about 2 years old.

I've searched technet, MS Knowledge base and googled a lot of different word combos try and find an answer but i can not find anything on this subject. Has anyone heard of this same thing happening?

Anyone have any ideas outside of wiping my PC clean and doing a new software build?

(That is what fixed it when it happened a few years back)

 

[BorisandBailey]

I'm going to shoot in the dark here...go to the Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Device Manager / and scroll down to Sounds. Look for the codecs and right-click on Audio Codecs, and click on Update Driver. Do that, perhaps, with the other codecs. I'm taking a guess that maybe there are new drivers that include Service Pack 3 in their makeup.

 

[garmann]

Once again...the only way i could fix this was to wipe the PC clean. It was time to do it anyways so no harm, just annoying. I wish i knew why windows media does this though.