I am having a problem that apparently doesn't go away easily. This is strange.

I have an old internal soundcard (soundblaster live! gold), but I am unable to install it. Here's a brief description about what has happened so far.

OS: Windows XP Professional with all possible patches, updates and servicepacks.

I watched a movie with Media Player Classic (comes with K-lite codec pack) and fell asleep during the movie. After I awoke, my soundcard was apparently gone. I couldn't find it anywhere. I tried to search it with add new hardware from control panel, in all possible ways, but no luck. It was gone. I then installed my integrated soundchip (CMedia AC97) and it did work, so I had sound.

After that, I removed soundblaster's drivers, cleaned up registry and removed all related files. I rebooted my computer at this stage. Then the next day I went and uninstalled my integrated soundchip, downloaded newest soundblaster drivers and rebooted. Now, I begun to install my soundblaster but the installation program was unable to find it. At all. It didn't exist anymore, and doesn't appear on any list of hardware.

All kinds of strange problems started. My wireless USB keyboard and mice were suddenly gone, so I had to reboot. Computer found them again, and installed software. After this, I tried to install integrated soundchip again, but no luck. My both sound devices were gone now, I had no way to get sound working. I tried everything. No luck. After a while searching for web, I got bored and tried to play some games. Well, now what happened was that everything with sound caused a sudden crash and cold reboot. Media players did not cause such, just games (with or without directsound).

This cold reboot is something that does happen with my stupid bugging integrated soundchip, even with newest drivers. Games just don't work with it. The strange thing is that it is not even installed because I can't and there is no sound at all. Hardware informatio nfrom computer panel does not list it, nor is it available from voice devices dropdown menu.

However, my easycall spekerphone suddenly appears to work, and is an available device for sound.

After all this, my programs started to crash and all that, so I ran ad-aware, spybot search & destroy, virus scan with AVG free, system mechanic professional's cleaning tools (registry, unneccessary files, shortcuts and all that) but my problems continued.

I was so pissed off at this point that I just installed windows xp again, although I have had a working installatio nfor two years.

Now, everything else works except my soundblaster. I tried to change PCI slot, but that doesn't help. It does work on other computers, I tried that, so it isn't broken.

Does anybody have a clue about what the hell is happening here?

In my eyes, I encountered some sort of domino-effect avalance of problems without any clear starting point.

Do you have any other PCI cards you can try? like maybe an old dialup modem or something? Maybe your PCI slots/motherboard are flaking out on ya. that's the only thing that I can think of that you didn't mention.

And I'm assuming that at this point with no sound at all, besides the phone thing, that device manager doesn't show a sound device or any exclamation points beside anything? and no beeps besides the all good one on POST/bootup?

My PCI network adapter works fine, I am connected to internet through it.

There's no beeps during boot/POST and my motherboard happily shows FF digits witin its display, which apparently means that everything is working fine. I would be glad to have some error code there, at least I would know which part of my hardware does not work. Or maybe it is windows xp, dunno.

However after my post I tried to install my hardware again, and this time it did find CMedia AC97 chip, but no soundblaster. At least I have sounds for music and movies, and those games that use directsound do work.

On a side note: apparently it is miles sound system (used by some games) which does not support my bugging chip. I do not blame them for that, its an old chip.

Wish i knew what to tell you. All i can say is maybe attach a dxdiag or at least post the make/model of your computer or motherboard if its a homemade. Maybe one of the gurus will be able to draw something out of it.

I didn't see if you answered smurfgod's question. What does it show in Device Manager?

It says:

- Other devices
? ethernet controller
? SM Bus controller
- Sound video, and game controllers
Audio codecs
C-Media AC97 audio device
Legacy audio drivers
Legacy video capture devices
Media control devices
MPU-401 compatible MIDI device
Standard game port
USB audio device (this is my easycall speakerphone)
Video codecs


There are no other conflicts but the ones listed above with ?-mark.

It could very well be your sm bus
System Management bus
Fixing it requires downloading the chipset drivers. If it's Intel. you might want to read this. It appears there's a patch to install before downloading the driver
http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets

Right click on each device and select "Properties", then select the "Details" tab
In the Details tab, use the dropdown box to select "Hardware ID"
Once you've got the Hardware ID displayed, write down the 4 characters that follow the VEN_ and the 4 characters that follow the DEV_

We'll use that info at http://www.pcidatabase.com to look up the specifications of the devices

FWIW - the SM Bus could conceivably help your sound issue - but the ethernet controller definitely won't help the sound.