Audio fix - part 1

So, everything is running fine... except that when I've got my headphones plugged in (the same does happen with speakers) I can 'hear' whenever something changes on the screen. The smallest thing I could hear was the cursor blinking (a steady Put-Put-Put sound), and the largest was 3d games (squeeeeeal screak screeach viiiiir). This was giving me a headache!

So first, the fails:

• Switching between the Audigy and the onboard sound - had no effect. (possibly due to vista's treatment of audio... as you will see from the working fix)
• Muting all the speakers - had no effect
• Trying different headphones - no effect
• Unplugging the screen - no effect
• Unplugging the DVI cable - possibly quietened it, but may have just been the fluctuation

So, I started to get a bit more involved. I moved the Audigy away from the video card, this had no effect, so I tried something I heard a long time ago - I made myself a shield with some cardboard and foil - wrapping foil around carboard for structure, then cardboard around the foil to insulate it from the delicate parts inside the pc. I then ran the pc while it was open, moving the 'shield' about, to see if it had any effect- the answer, no, not for me.

Then I read a forum post, suggesting disabling the onboard sound from BIOS... so I plunged into it and switched from 'auto' to 'disable'. Vista installed it's drivers for the Audigy (which I had just removed) and hurray, fixed! the annoying squeal is now completely gone, and I can listen to sounds without developing a full scale headache.

As for why disabling in device manager wasn't enough, I'm not sure... Something to look into another day.

Now my only problem with sound is that Vista won't give me my EAX, and Creative won't accept that I have one of their sound cards, and refuses to install their software...