Pulse Audio, Connection failed: Connection terminated

I have Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04, AMD Turion X2 64 bit proccessor,

Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA),
Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc RS780 Azalia controller

aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: CONEXANT Analog [CONEXANT Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 1: Conexant Digital [Conexant Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: ATI HDMI [ATI HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I can go to Applications>Sound and Video>Pulse Audio Device Chooser and start pulse audio without any problems. VLC, Rythmbox, and Movie Player have no issues playing sound. So far I have to plug in my ear phones before booting Ubuntu in order for sound to not play through both my ear phones and the speakers. This is a laptop and it have an internal microphone, that will not work.

The problem occurs whenever I open Volume control or Volume Meter (Playback or Recording). I have visited this webpage to try to solve my issue (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=789578) to no avail. I used this website to start pulse audio manually using a terminal command (pulseaudio & pavucontrol) and received this message:

[1] 11442
I: caps.c: Limited capabilities successfully to CAP_SYS_NICE.
I: caps.c: Dropping root privileges.
I: caps.c: Limited capabilities successfully to CAP_SYS_NICE.
E: pid.c: Daemon already running.
E: main.c: pa_pid_file_create() failed.
[1]+ Exit 1 pulseaudio

Then an information window pops up telling me that the Connection failed: Connection terminated. This is not the orginal fault that I have received. I have also received an error that said something like "CPU overload".

I am sure that this issue has been brought up before and I am sorry but I have spent days and days looking at post after post. I am very new to linux and Ubuntu. The last time I tried anything like this I installed Kubuntu and ended up having to reinstall windows (I hate windows). I have so far had a very good experience with Ubuntu and would love to get everything in working order. I am currently deployed in Iraq and any help you give me will be greatly appreciated. I would really like to get my audio working so I can skype with my wife!