Sound problems -help

Hi i have had a look around and cant find a solution. My promblem is with sound. There is like this static sound that only happens just before, during and just after an actual sound. for example when im on ven and someone says something theres static but when there are no sounds there is no static. this is fine most of the time but when im playing a game where there are enviromental sounds like wind and engine noises the static is constant.

anyone able to suggest a way to fix this. there was no problem earlier and the only thing that has changes is i replaced my ram and upgraded to windows 7 64bit.

any help would be appreciated. it starts to get to me after playing some mass efect with static all the time

thanks

no sound card just using the motherboards sounds. i have a gigabyte something or other with 7.1 surrond sound motherboard. im using 5.1 headset.

i tried updating the drivers for the sound card but it gets to 90% and then it asks something like are you sure you want the program to make changes to your system. or something like that. i press yes and a few secs later the same message pops up and its still at 90% ill try it again though.

its not a usb headset. ill try unpluging certain plugs.

i just unpluged, what im guess are the 5.1 plugs so its just stero now. i can tell the difference surrond sound wise but there is now no static

thanks