Dungeon Lords Audio Probs PLEASE HELP

[Ubiquitous]

I posted this under Dungeon Lords and have had no replies so...
My audio stutters the intro cinematics and completely misses the menu screen. The video is just fine.
I have only changed 2 things at the time of the problem;
(1) I updated my audio card driver (It is an external M-audio card). I've tried changing its settings and reinstalling with no positive changes. But what makes me think it isn't the driver is that I went back to my original one (that used to work) and still had the same suttering.
(2) Norton reported my .net framework had several corrupted files so I deleted it. That's about the same time I noticed the problem. But I have now reinstalled .net framework 2.0 and it still stutters.
other info;
D.L. is installed onto an external hardrive (always has been)
Video is working just fine
All other games and programs are working fine (most of those are on the hardrive as well)