Clicking, Crackling and Popping sounds during mp3 playback.

[Geek-9pm]

My bad,

Can not  read my own writing.
I can read reading, but I can read writing.

[Tonman]

Can you install the k-lite codec pack, and then see of your other media programs work?

I already had it installed when I noticed MPC would play mp3 files. However I uninstalled it, and when I tried to install again I got that error message "Invalid floating point operation".  After a couple of tries I was able to run the installer (have no idea why).  Now that all the audio is going through ffdshow audio decoder I can hear all my mp3s and videos.  I wonder if I could get winamp to run through ffdshow.  I think maybe it could be windows Fraunhoffer decoder that's making all that noise. 

I noticed in the DevMgmt window that I have all these new audio codecs. I used to have only Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 Codec, now I see another one with the same name but it also says (Professional) v3.3.2 and I also have LAME ACM Codec v3.98.2 among others.  Maybe if I set priority for the Lame codec or the professional?  Or delete windows Fraunhofer?

I'm still having some video issues with divx and xvids.  Sometimes the screen will go black, and when I pause it the image will come back, so I press play and I can watch it again.   I think I'm going to try running them through the ffdshow video decoder, because I had the divx and xvid codecs installed, instead of the ffdshow.
Anyways, thanks for all of your comments.  This has been really helpful.

[BC_Programmer]

"Invalid floating point operation"

This is a strange error- might point to larger problems...

[Tonman]

This is a strange error- might point to larger problems...

*censored*... that's what I thought.  Any suggestions for narrowing down the problem?

[BC_Programmer]

well- could be a bad download-

I take it it appears "randomly" and often trying to run that same program a few times works successfully?

Could be a problem with the processor or motherboard;

Is your machine overclocked in any way?

try this test:

http://users.bigpond.net.au/CPUburn/

[Tonman]

Is your machine overclocked in any way?

Nope. Everything is running at it's default speed.  I'll try the test later and see what I get.  Have to go now.
Again, thanks for everything guys!

[Geek-9pm]

There are some known issues with AMD dual-core. But you would think that that would not relate to the problem here.
http://developer.amd.com/assets/TSC_Dual-Core_Utility.pdf

[squall_01]

I just had a thought let me do a few things.  Were did you get the files?