Media Player problem

ok, this started a couple of days ago, everything that was using Media Player (WMP, Kazaa, ...) started screeching when playing music or videos. the weird thing is it works good on Real1 or other proggys. It's Windows XP, on my P3. I thought it might be what everyone had, the VIA/Soundblaster problem, but the music doesn'T skip, it just makes the same noise as if you're listening in headphones with the volume way too loud ...

That's a wierd one. What do you have your system volume level set at?
And what is your speaker level set at?
Onboard sound?

Doesn't matter the volume it's at, it can even be almost silent, you'll still hear that screeching ... Also, these are the Polkaudio speakers that ship with HPs, so htere's no volume control on them, it's all Windows-based.

It's a SoundBlaster something card, donno exactly, and I can't check right now (not for a month or so) as I'm in vacation . but anyways, it's not onboard, it's a modem-soundcard-gameport card all-in-one. Has all the normal line out, line in and mic, but it also has the amplified port, on which the speakers are connected, as they aren't self-powersupplied.

This probably dosnt help, but I had a simular problem with winamp. I just reinstalled the software and it was fine. I guess you could go into windows media player, and unassociate it with audio files if you have another audio player installed.