Garbled sound

I am running a XPS studio with window 7. The sound while listening to anything slowing begins to garble to the point you can not listen ant longer. I have updated all the drivers. One thing I have noticed is that when I plug a mic or headphones into the external jacks I used to get a program that would pop up, to help manage those devoices. That no longer happens so I am thinking that if I am able to figure out what program that was and get it back the issue may be resolved. Thought?