Premiere Broke my Soundcard?

Hi

Before I start the title to this thread is a very wild stab in the dark. Let me start from the top.

I recently decided to progress on to Premiere Pro after using a (quite old!) version of elements for the last couple years. I paid for it and installed it only to find a series of issues including timeline play back not working properly and audio cutting out or never being present. After a few days of tinkering and getting nowhere I elect to cancel and go for the most modern version of elements thinking I'll have better luck.

I'm having the same problems.

Whilst I could have believed my computer lacks the clout to run the professional version, there's not a snow-days chance in hell it should struggle with Elements. The main issue seems to be when I start up my speakers start to give off a static like crackling noise. The audio will then fail to work, usually followed by a complete failure of video playback too. When this last happened I had some editing that urgently needed done so I opted to use my old version, only to find playback had suddenly stopped working on that too. Checking out other systems, I found my computer now wouldn't play video in the video app, media player, or even YouTube!

Even more puzzling is restarting the computer seems to make everything fine again. I should note my PC has never had any technical issues of any kind before this and I'm puzzled. I realise this is more the domain of a PC forum but as the problem only started with trying to install new premiere software I thought someone here might have an insight.