My audio problem is opposite to one of your bullet points. I have a new operating system, sound was

Question

TO HP IN RESPONSE TO DOWNLOADING THE LATEST UPDATED AUDIO DRIVER:
My audio problem is opposite to one of your bullet points. I have a new operating system, sound was working fine, now on skype cannot be heard, iTunes will not load. All were fine before the change over. Over the past few days have gone through every type of troubleshooting offered online, my HP dv1000 came with the problem and I fixed it on the old os, just forget what I did. Recorder not working, etc.

Answer 1

First off, try downloading the latest Safari. I believe it's 5.1.9.  While you're there download the combo updater for Slow Leopard 10.6.8 to get your system up to the final release.
If your system generally runs well then it's unlikely that it will be necessary. In any case, it's usually a last resort.
A lot of odd problems can be remedied by repairing your permissions.
About Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions feature
Beyond that, some problems respond to a File System Check.
How to Repair a Mac Disk with fsck from Single User Mode
Although there's nothing wrong with Adobe Acrobat 7 (to the best of my knowledge) you should be aware that OS X may be using Preview instead unless you've specifically designated Acrobat as the default PDF app. I actually prefer it in most cases.
good luck