Greetings.

Summary: After a recent fresh install of Windows XP, the sound on my computer is no longer working.

Details: As you can see below my motherboard is a bit old, but still fine for my current purposes. I've been using it for about 6 years with no problems. I recently had to reinstall XP because of a hard drive upgrade. I installed all the drivers that came with the motherboard on CD and also installed all the updates from SOYO's site. At one point during my driver installation the sound WAS working, but at some point it stopped (unfortunately I do not know exactly when). When I try to install the C-Media Driver that is from Soyo's site (listed under the drivers for my specific motherboard) I receive this error: "Our audio chip provides mult-speaker surround and realistic sound effects. Due to the fact that your computer is not equipped with our audio chip, you can not avail yourself of these advanced features. For more information, please contact your computer dealer - C-Media Electronic Inc. - Website http://www.cmedia.com.tw"

I have tried installing the latest drivers from C-Media's site (the CMI8738_WDM_0639XP.zip package), but receive a message during install that says "Waiting for audio driver......" that hangs indefintely until I click on Exit, which then restarts my computer, but still without sound. The PCI Audio Applications software installs successfully on reboot, but when I try to run it I receive: "Can not execute all the components of AudioRack. Please check program files and registry settings or just reinstall AudioRack."

There also seems to be an opensource driver available here:
http://cmediadrivers.googlepages.com/home (CMIDriver-1.1.4-bin-x86.zip). However, when I try to install that I receive this error "Driver Installer (CMI 8738/8768) has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience." (complete with the handy Send Error Report business to Microsoft).

Thoughts: It seems to me there is some type of driver conflict going on somewhere but I do not know what else to do or try. There is a more detailed list of my system below. I'm also having random IE7 problems where it freezes and says it has to close and send Microsoft the famous error report, but I believe that my be unrelated (??) Anyway, if anyone has any ideas on what I could try next I would truly appreciate it. I've spent a good bit of time at this myself but have come up quite dry. I have searched a quite a few forums and FAQs for all the associated software vendors involved but have found nothing there either. If there is any more specific information that is needed about my system, I will be more than happy to post it for you!

System Details:
Motherboard - SY-K7V Dragon+
Chipset - VIA KT266A / 8233 CE Version
Integrated Sound - CMI 8738 (No add-on sound card)
Windows XP SP2 (with all updates including IE7)

Sound Related Programs - PCI Audio Applications
Sound, video and game controllers -
- Audio Codecs
- Legacy Audio Drivers
- Legacy Video Capture Devices
- Media Control Devices
- Video Codecs

More Details about what I have tried/checked:

- There are no conflicts in device manager.
- The sound is enabled in the BIOS.
- When I open Volume Control I receive this message:
"There are no active mixer devices available. To install mixer devices, go to Control Panel, click Printers and Other Hardware, and then click Add Hardware. This program will now close."
- Windows Audio Entry is set to Automatic and started.
- The speaker volume option under Sounds and Audio Devices is actually grayed out completely (as is the Advanced button).
- There are no default devices for Sound Playback, Sound Recording, or MIDI music playback.
- Both my TDK CDRW241040B CD-Burner and my TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-M1612 are both enabled and at full volume.
- An Audio Codecs entry is under Hardware, but no "Audio Controller"
- There are 11 Audio Codes listed with the Microsoft PCM Converter currently at 11th (and imaadp32.acm 1st).

Many thanks for even reading this far!