I have an old Intel Pentium w/MMX (32 MB RAM) running Windows 98SE with a DSL 896 Kbps connection. Until a few months ago I had sound-- I'm not really sure when it stopped because I usually have it turned off and only turn it on to play music, etc.

But one day I turned on the sound and it wasn't there. I've been troubleshooting like crazy ever since, but everything seems to be in order. I don't get any error messages, the sound APPEARS to play, and I do have video for movie clips, etc. (but again, no sound).

Device Manager tells me that everything is working properly (but obviously it lies), and when I try to "Update Driver Files" in Creative Sound Blaster 16 Plug and Play, it tells me that I already have the best driver(s) installed (which is another lie because they're dated 1999!).

Windows Update shows no updates for my sound card. My speakers are plugged in securely and turned on. Ditto for all of my other connections.

Don't know whether it means anything, but when I compared the drivers shown in Device Manager with those found by DriverGuide Toolbox, they were MOSTLY the same, with 3 exceptions:
DM shows C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MMDEVLDR.VXD but DGT doesn't.
DGT shows C:\WINDOWS\Inf\SB16AWE.INF and C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\CatRoot\{F750E6C3-38EE-11D1-85E5-00C04FC295EE}\SB16AWE.CAT but DM doesn't.

The entries they have in common (all located in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM) are:
CSPMAN.DLL
SB16.VXD
SBFM.DRV
SB16SND.DRV
WFM0200.ACV
WFM0200A.CSP
WFM0201.ACV
WFM0201A.CSP
WFM0202.ACV
WFM0202A.CSP
WFM0203.ACV
WFM0203A.CSP

Has my sound card just died? And if so, why don't I have the yellow "!" in Device Manager? Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated. Thanks a bunch!