Windows ME(not XP) sound card not recognized

Hi all-
I have had a lengthy discussion on another board but in the end we could not solve this problem. After reading the posts here, it seems I am having the same problem that a lot of XP people are having, but I am running Windows ME on an old Dell Optiplex GX110 Pentium III system. First of all, Windows ME is not recognizing the onboard chip right, Windows keeps installing the AC97 codec and calling it PCI hardware and an Intel 82801AA chip (!?!), but I have directly seen the chip and seen the documentation for this computer, and it is an AD1881 chip, and Windows ME doesn't have any drivers for that and doesn't recognize it that way. So I had to go on the web and find drivers for that chip, and none of them produced any sound. I disabled the onboard, and installed a Soundblaster Live 24-bit, and under device manager, it says that the PCI card is installed and working fine and the drivers are all installed and everything is fine with no conflicts, but under Sounds/ multimedia everything is greyed out, and I have never had a volume control icon near the clock, and of course it goes without saying that I have no sound. I do a dxdiag and it says I either have no sound card installed or no drivers installed. It sounds very much like what is happening to the XP people, but the XP solutions are not solutions I can do with Windows ME.

So, can anyone explain what I can do to get my Windows ME to recognize my onboard chip properly, maybe that would solve the problem. I could still return the PCI board, if I could get my onboard to work right. Am I reading that SOundblaster has not produced XP drivers, and should I assume that their drivers are not ME compatible as well, even though they claim that they are ME compatible on the box? I was relieved to see so many people here complaining of similar symptoms to what my computer has been doing. At least my post will be believed here.

You should have a disk that has motherboard drivers on it. Have you installed those drivers? What is the make and model of the computer/motherboard?

It's a Dell Optiplex GX110, Pentium III 667 mHz, Service Tag 89G420B.
Motherboard is Dell as far as I can tell, chipset Intel 810 (already tried the chipset update from Intel, my computer tells me that I don't need the update, and I confirmed that it was already installed doing the procedures that they tell you to do to confirm this).

I don't have a motherboard driver disk. I got the computer secondhand. I haven't had that suggestion before, thanks. Is that the same as updating the chipset? As I said, I have already tried that and supposedly that was done.

On the audio troubleshooting list at the Dell website, they suggest clearing or resetting the NVRAM, I followed the directions exactly but I didn't get a beep when I pressed Alt-+ E in the "Bios" screen (as I call it anyway). I don't think it worked. I don't know why, except that literature was old (2001) and my Bios is a version from 2003, so maybe my Bios is so new that they don't have that feature anymore.

Any other ideas? Desperate here. i have already done the obvious, tried to get updated chipset, as I said, updated AD1881 drivers, updated SB live drivers, did the CTZaap on the CD from SBLive, installed the SBLive drivers into a folder on the desktop and then tried to install the drivers from that folder to my computer. But I think the root of the problem is related to whatever is preventing Windows from recognizing the onboard correctly in the first place.

Please advise. Thanks so much for the quick reply.

Can you turn off the onboard audio in the bios?

Look in device manager. What, if any, yellow exclamation points are listed? List them all here, please.

Reason for your confusion is that Intel 82801AA is the audio chip, whereas ADI is the AC97 codec used by the chip. Driver for the codec is here: http://support.dell.com/support/down...leaseid=R45973

Having drivers for two different sound cards hanging around can cause problems. Uninstall all audio drivers appearing in add/remove programs before trying to reinstall. If you go with onboard you should remove the SB. If you go with SB, the onboard needs to be disabled in bios and all instances removed from device manager.

Thanks again for the prompt replies.
To answer your question, mobilePCPhysician-
Yes, I can turn off audio in the Bios, I have done that in the past, and it prevents the computer from detecting the onboard audio, but it didn't help the PCI card to install any better. It was recommended that I leave it on in the bios and just disable it in device manager instead, so that is what went with while I was trying to do the SBLive card. But, I am no longer trying to do SB anymore, I am trying to solve the onboard problem instead, because I don't think any PCI card will work without solving whatever is happening with the onboard.

The only exclamation point was for the primary hard drive controller, for some reason there are three hard drive controllers listed, the second one listed is called a primary controller, and that one had an exclamation point. It is disabled now, so there is now a red x through it instead. No other exclamation points, none regarding multimedia or sound especially. Never were.

In answer to you, hudsonsmith, Intel 82801AA isn't the chip at all, WIndows thinks it is, but AD1881 is the chip, I saw it with my own eyes, and that is also what is listed in the original documentation that came with this computer (I found the PDF file online on the Dell website). I understand that AC97 is the codec that Windows is loading on for the Intel. Thanks for the driver link. But, it doesn't work because that isn't the right codec, for the right chip, in the first place. Windows isn't detecting the chip right for whatever reason, that is the puzzle.

And why does windows think, not only that it is an Intel 82801 chip, but that it is a PCI device? That doesn't make any sense at all. There clearly isn't any Intel PCI card in this computer, unless there is a type of PCI card that doesn't look like what I would think a PCI card would look like.

The SB is removed, and all SB drivers are removed that I could find. I am not trying to do SB anymore. I would like to get the onboard working, I don't think there is much hope of getting SB or any other PCI card working while the onboard problem wasn't solved, given that I have such a strange problem going on with this particular computer. Other than add/remove programs, and device manager, where else should I look to remove all audio drivers? Is there an easy answer to that?

Thanks both of you. All advice is appreciated.

Okay, this is the WinDrivers forum. If I can't get this answered here, it won't get answered anywhere. I am streamlining my question somewhat, after doing a little more searching on the internet, I am getting a bit worried. I searched for a codec specifically for my AD1881 chip after learning more reading hudsonsmith's post. I don't think there is a codec for this chip compatible with Windows ME. I only find them for 95, 98, 2000, NT. Should I use 98 and assume? Oftentimes it is assumed that 98/ME go together, but is this true with codecs too?

Suggest you contact Dell. AD1885 is what they claim was installed with that service tag. Analog Devices does not make generic drivers available.

Can you identify the make/model of the motherboard? Might be able to get something that way.