All audio running slowly when Audacity is opened

[toomuchexposition]

Perhaps I'm missing something very basic, but when I launch Audacity, all the audio on my computer plays very slow (the low, dragged out sound); it's slower than half speed. This would include all media players of any type (audio and video), sound effects and music for games, even my computer alert sounds are running slower than half speed. The only way to reset the sound is to restart the computer.

I've tried installing Audacity before with the same result.

Can anyone suggest a solution for this issue?

[kozikowski]

<<<when I launch Audacity>>>

But only after you launch Audacity? As long as you don't do that, everything is fine?

Which Audacity? What is your processor speed? How much memory, how big is the hard drive and how much room do you have left? Are you using the sound on the motherboard, or a separate sound card and who made it?

Do you have any audio capture programs like Total Recorder?

Koz

[alatham]

Take a look at the sample rate in the bottom left hand corner of Audacity's main window. What is it set to immediately after you open Audacity?

Try changing this to something lower. Do the system sounds still sound wrong? Is so, do they at least sound closer?

[toomuchexposition]

As long as I don't launch Audacity, my computer is absolutely fine. Audacity seems to trigger something.

I do admit that my laptop is pretty dated at this point, unfortunately I lack the cash to solve this issue. I have a 3.06 GHz Pentium 4 processor, 512 MB of RAM, and only 60 GB of drive space total 16 GB are free. My sound chip is a Realtek AC97, which judging by my computer, is pretty crappy. My laptop is not the ideal running environment, but this result seems a bit strange to me.

I have no audio capture programs installed.

Changing the sample rate had no influence on the sound at all.