Echo Mia/ PA9 - PAINFUL sudden white noise and crash!

[Paco]

It happened last night again, and my ears are still in pain this morning. Out of nowhere, while working in Cakewalk PA9, this painful, ridiculously loud, deafening screeching white noise filled my headphones. I think I jumped halfway across the room. I think I'm still in shock. After recovering and turning off the headphone monitor (which I thought at first was the problem), I found that the whole computer was frozen.
Can anybody tell me what happened? I'm not sure how much troubleshooting I can do now, since I kicked my precious computer like Maradonna on a penalty kick.

I think I might be done with this DAW frustration - maybe I'll go get some real digital recording 4track gig or something.

Here's my setup:

Rode NT1, Marshall 603, 1006, 2001, SM58
Art Tube MP
Behringer 8 channel mixer
RNC Compressor
Echo Mia (used to have SB Live with no problems but latency ... tried Audiophile 24/96 and it wouldn't stop clicking/popping)
Cakewalk PA9 and Windows 98 (tuned well... I'm a systems admin by trade)
Abit KT7A-raid
512MB PC133 sdram
30gig and 40 gig ata100 western dig's
ATI All in Wonder
(Other PCI devices not loaded in this hardware profile... therefore no IRQ conflicts)

[Paco]

Aye caramba! After searching all over, I found this forum where others have had the screaching problem making them deaf.

http://sound-on-sound2.infopop.net/2...3273052272&p=5

IF I STILL CANNOT HEAR TOMORROW, ECHO WILL BE HEARING FROM MY LAWYER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!