Understood JTT. (Yes, use the burner for backups. Give the zip away or donate it to a public school, assuming it's still working all right.)

As for the sound problem, sometimes things that might be obvious escape us. Check first and make sure your speakers are connected properly to your sound card. If so, then see if you are showing that little yellow speaker icon on your Windows task bar. If you are, double click on it, and it will bring up your grey Play Control box properties box, that shows Play Control, CD Audio, Line In, Wave, etc. Make sure the sliders are all the way up for CD audio and Wave/Direct Sound (and the boxes assigned to each are not checked as Muted).

If you don't have this yellow speaker icon on your taskbar, you can still access the Play control box, by clicking START---SETTINGS--->CONTROL PANEL--->MULTIMEDIA and on the Multimedia page, check the box that says "show volume control on the taskbar". Then close it, find the yellow icon on your taskbar, and go through what I mentioned in the preceding paragraph. This just might solve your problem. If it doesn't you will need to reload the drivers for your sound card, and go from there.
I can't give you a specific reasoon why your email is downloading so slowly without knowing how your connection to the internet is set up. Eudora while a great email program (my favorite) is a resource hog. You shouldn't have anything else running in the background while sending or receiving. Perhaps there is a problem with the POP server or with the SMPT server, or if you're connected via dial-up, perhaps line noise, or high net usage on the ISP's email server. You'll have to trouble shoot that one.