Remember that sound bug? It's still there...

Yeah, the bug where you could hear sounds until a few minutes into the game, where all sounds are muted except for wind. That's still there.

i kinda have that same issue, cept my sound starts to go all buggy, lots of REALLY LOUD static and whatnot, plus it acts like it only has one channel, hence someone starts a song, and then someone starts to type something and it cuts off the song, etc...

Before someone like me tells Zed to update his drivers, I have also been having this issue. I did not have this issue prior to 0.5.0, but have experienced it since.

I get random snippets of noise and SL sounds, apparently not triggered by any event, for example, I might get half of the "ka-ching" money sound when no money has moved.

Sound card is a Creative SoundBlaster Audigy Platinum.

Ya i just updated my drivers last night, but havent tried it yet since it was an hour after closing, hopefully they'll work now, but your right seems to be primarly Sound Blaster (I have Sound Blaster Live! MP3+), since my friend Gary (Rygar Grimm to SLerz) is using an integrated 5.1 sound output within the motherboard.

I had some ghost typists following me around yesterday. I was the only one on the entire sim and I could still hear the typing noise. It followed me all the way accross the world, from the Dark Wood project to the outer edges of the Outlands.

I tried updating my drivers, but I don't even know which I should get. Creative Labs says I have to get updated drivers from Dell rather than them, but Dell's website certainly doesn't mention a known issue with Second Life. The closest I could find was a patch that was supposed to fix a "static audio" bug in a Pinball program, but that patch didn't help with SL.

SL's release notes mention the specific version numbers for nVidia drivers that are problematic; can any Linden provide a specific version number for a Sound Blaster driver?

I've had this exact same problem. Some time in the game, my sound will go bezerk. My footsteps will be huge static filled booms, and I will get random sounds following me about. I had the keyboard spooks, like Ama mentioned on one occasion. I have a SoundBlaster Live! card, with fully updated drivers, and this is not a new phenomenon when beta testing games. I have had several beta games where the sound would be permanently distorted through static, or it would just start up during the game. Strangely, every single one of these games failed to cause any problems when I bought the retail version.

I think part of the problem may be related to my GeForce 4 card. I never had any of this static interference until I upgraded my nvidia drivers from the default for the first time. Switching from my on-board sound card to an SB improved it a little, as did moving the sound card further away from my graphics card on the board.

Read the the thread started by Jake, this may explain your audio problems. I have included a link to Dell's audio forum and also one to Consumer Watch. Chances are, "Dude, you were screwed".