Sound card problems - can anyone help?

[Barno]

My Hercules Fortissimo III 7.1 sound card is playing up. I noticed a problem in both World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online where the game pauses very briefly ever few seconds. I initally blamed my connection but then I discovered that it went away when I switched from hardware to software audio in the game's options. I should be able to use hardware audio so theres something wrong here, plus I can't fix the problem in games that don't give you the option to switch to software. Also, when I'm playing some music on my computer and I open a folder, the 'click' noise that accompanies the action causes a sound to be repeated over and over at high speed in the background which spoils the music I'm playing. The only way to stop it is to stop the music and start it again. Not a great solution.

If anyone could offer a fix for these problems I'd really appreciate it.

Cheers.

 

[Barno]

Can anyone help me with this? I've updated my sound card drivers but the problem is still there. The pausing is really annoying me, its almost like it has to pause every time a new sound is played as it only really happens in a game when you move around.