Sound Card = owned?

[Fireheart]

Is there a virus or any circumstance that makes windows fail to reconize ANY sound device (including on-board sound), and occasionally change the start bar to retro windows skin? Ive reinstalled, updated drivers. Pulled out and changed PCI slots multipul times. Been through the device manager countless times.

The sound card im running is an creative labs audigy 4. And Im running XP.

When I plug it into my mobo the dooo deee dooo dooo (opening windows) sound plays. But as it boots up, nothing comes up in the sound device windows. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING is greyed out. But when I use my sound card, it never works. When I check the device manager, it says its installed and working fine, but the sound device manager wont even register anything (including motherboard sound). I've tried everything. Help.

[AT2005]

Try disabling onboard sound in the BIOS. Usually the Azalia codec.

[Fireheart]

How do I go about that? Ive been through it, I don't see anything about sound devices goin through the BIOS. Ive got a Gigabyte. Dual BIOS or whatever it is.

[Fireheart]

I found, it disabled it, and still doesnt work.
Thanks for the help though.

[AT2005]

If you've got Dual or more boot BIOS make sure they're also configured to disable Azalia codec. If not, check for new drivers for the sound card. Also if you're card require extra power make sure it's plugged.

[Fireheart]

There is no jack for power on it. There never was and it worked fine for months, just now out of the blue it decides to break down.

[AT2005]

Probably failure. The easy route would be

Buy a new one, if it was $$ you can RMA it and SB can replace it.

[Fireheart]

But the motherboard sound fails aswell. Theres gotta be something else...
Thanks for your advice.

[AT2005]

Reset the Fail-Safe on your board.

If that doesn't work make sure the cards seated well.

BTW When you've got a card in for sound installed, and even though the Azalia codec is enabled no sound will come out. So remove the card temporarily and see if sound comes out after enabling Azalia after REMOVING the card. If it does, then the problem points to the card itself.