Well I had two problems with Skyrim, the first was Skyrim constantly crashing randomly to desktop. The other problem I had was very low sound that I couldn't change. So after poking around I came across 2 things to do which solved it all.

Number 1: Use Large Address Aware to increase the amount of memory the game can use beyond 2 gigs (this fixed the random crashes, played a solid 8 hours without a hitch.) HOWEVER I think it only works with 64bit windows so I can't vouch for 32bit.

http://www.mediafire.com/?r7lvuvvvkzib7b9

Number 2: Open your Skyrim install directory and check for the DirectX folder and install DirectX 10. I did this and now my sound works normally.

I hope this helps anyone else that is having these problems.