On-Board SOLO-1 CD TROUBLE

I have a CompUSA computer with sound on the
motherboard. The sound is from an ESS1938S
SOLO-1 chip. Recently I lost sound in one
of my CD player's channels. The CD will play
both channels through my headphones if plugged into the CD-ROM unit. It will only do this if I unplug the connection to the motherboard from the CD-ROM unit. Is the chip bad or is it possible that I have a software configuration problem? Is it recommended that I turn the on-board sound chip off and get a "real" sound card?