Sound Card Crashes Games, Help!

[Piggycow]

I have a Creative Audigy 2 ZS and for some reason it seems to be the reason behind many game crashes. Often the crashes are accompanied by a looping sound after the game even closes. I have uninstalled the drives and reinstalled the original I have from 2005. I tried to change its slot in the motherboard but it still doesn't work. Some games will not load the map for instance but if i disable the card it loads fine but then I have no sound. What can be the problem? I have a Dell with
P4 3.0
1 Gig ram
Nvidia 6800 256 MB

[ski]

Do you have another sound card that can be installed to determine if the current one is bad?
Which Dell system do you have?
Did you upgrade any components after the initial system purchase?
Is everything(fans, heatsinks, vents, etc.) dust free?