Contact [email protected] and arrange to get your unit repaired under warranty. The random "pops and scratches" are a likely sign of a bad RAM chip, and if some of the RAM is bad this can account for a whole host of problems.

You can check this by connecting up to a serial terminal (hyperterm in Windows for example), powering up the unit and very quickly pressing Ctrl-T - this will drop you into self test, and any RAM errors will be reported (email a copy of the output to us).

Rob