realplayer high-pitched

I'm running SuSE 7.3 on a Pentium 4 with, if I recall correctly, an AC'97 (?) sound system. Realplayer previously worked but now it plays everything in a high pitch; sounding a bit like the American cartoon "Alvin and the Chipmunks" (though not *that* high!). I had this error after a kernel upgrade when I was running 7.2, but I'm running 7.3's stock kernel. Does anyone out there have an idea about how to fix this?