Thanks techknight, I think there must be more wrong with this than just bad caps as you are suggesting.

Another symptom is the machine will freeze for a short amount of time after playing a few sounds. If I click the alert sounds in the sound control panel a few times in a row, it will play the first few just fine and then will hang, sometimes for a few seconds or completely freeze the machine.

On the other hand, if I run The PlayerPro 4.06, the sound works perfectly through both channels and for as long as I need. This program gains exclusive access to the sound somehow, though I don't really know what I'm talking about here.

Again, any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks for the feedback so far.