I downloaded Media Player 9 from the Windows update website. When I

play a CD I get a echo sound. When I listen to music on a music

website, it sounds fine. I uninstalled the Media player 9 to roll back

to the original Media player that came with windows 98. The CD sounds

fine. How do I rectify the problem with the Media player 9?

Could be your soundcard/cd rom drivers are too old. Does your CD ROM send audio to your computer via a separate audio cable?

Yes. Cable from CD Rom to sound card. I put in another sound card and the same things happens. I tried another CD rom but did not rectify the problem.
I've never had this problem before.

So this doesn't happen with anything else besides WMP?

Correct. Just Windows Media Player. Music CD plays fine through the original media player that loads with windows 98 but once the Windows Media Player 9 is loaded, it starts popping, echoing, etc, etc.

So grab another type of media player to play CD's in, or upgrade to win 2k. Not much you can do trying to run the latest and greatest on the oldest software.

I sell alot of older machines identical to this one and have had no problem with any of them. Operating system is Win98 on all of them. Just upgrading to win2k will not create any resolution to the problem with the paticular machine that had a problem with as the others work just fine. (very same machine). (very same hardware). I'm thinking something didn't load right during setup.

Check what "enhancements" you have ticked. And do you also have a program called "soundman?" If so....you may have it set on "auditorium" etc with auto-gain control....untick that auto-gain if you do.....
Set WMP on default setting.....no surround boost...nothing...and see what happens....