Yeh man, the speaker with the line in it is a mute symbol, thats what it means. does it mute when this is on corse if it does then that is mute, so the sound is of when if it muted and the symbol comes on becorse its on mute when the symbol is on the screen when its muted.
A homi of mine had the same problem, but it resulted from being in a car crash when his head was severed and his blood went all over the unit, For insurance purposes, I had the empeg, but I thought it was shite so i gave it away to my girlfriends cousin who kept complaning about the mute. so he eventually rewired it, added a new hard drive because people with 4gig HD are gay becorse they jus are.
The skippin songs - i dunno about, I can tell u that its really annoying tho, especially when tryin to listen to me rap when im cruisin the mean streets of LA.
Later dude.
Hi Billy Bob