[RyBoom]

I have a Dell Inspiron 531S running Vista. I run current versions of iTunes and Firefox and use Bose Companion 3 speakers.

Since December my speakers have become increasingly intermittent. Over the past month and a half, they became almost entirely unreliable, working only rarely.

So two weeks ago, I really tried to track it down. I am certain the speakers are reliable. I realized that I have an output on the front of the PC, too. I switched to that jack, and everything worked perfectly. Problem solved. Happy family.

But then a few days ago, I lost sound when using Firefox (for YouTube and MLB streaming primarily). Today I rebooted my PC and now it won't play sounds from iTunes but it does continue to play Vista related beeps, blips and jingles appropriately.

I'm stumped and depend on my speakers. I covet some solid suggestions.