First of all answer following questions (most of which were already mentioned by Stang02GT)------>
1. Which Windows OS are you using?
2. Have you ever tried just opening winamp by itself and running it to see what happens?
3. Do you have a lot of programs open or other things running when you are using winamp? If yes, please list their names.
4. If I'm not mistaken then you should also have Windows Media Player installed by default on any present Windows OS. Try switching to Windows media player and play MP3 in it. Post back your observations.
5. Which Winamp version are you using?
Once you post answers to these questions, we will try to help you out [if we can :=)]
It's alittle hard to figure out these sort of problems with out physically being able to play around on your PC.
Agree with you on this................