Hello!
I am new to this forum, but I can't take the pain of troubleshooting this problem anymore. I will be more than happy to provide any information that may help, just ask. (I have the Belarc reaport ready to send)

Here is my problem.
I have a IBM ThinkCentre A50p 8432-97U that was given to me a few months ago. It came with windows xp pro installed (and the sound worked just great under xp). Since I have more experience dealing with Windows ME, I repartitioned, formatted, and installed a fresh copy of Windows ME. I have solved several issue such as networking and monitor drivers after the switch to ME, but I cannot get the sound to work.

According to my best research I have a "SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio" I have tried installing no less than 20 different drivers in hopes that one of them would work. None of them did. Some would do nothing at all and some would go to the soundMAX splash screen and make a show of installing. when I would install a driver i would often find the audio devise listed as "PCI multimedia audio devise" in devise manager. (there is not PCI card, this is onboard audio)

I restored the windows xp installation with norton ghost 2003 (I was smart enough to keep a backup) and copied down all the information I could find. when (under xp) the sound was working it had this information listed as the driver...
date: 11/25/2002
version: 5.12.1.3531
I believe it was made by a company called "analog devises". although i saw a mention of a company called sensourg Ltd.

I believe that this computer has a Intel 865G chipset (some forums I looked at thought that was important).

As I said before, if there is any information that would help I would be pleased to post it. the only reason I'm not posting the belarc report right now is that this post is way to long anyhow.

Thank you in advance to anyone kind enough to give a hand with this before I pull ALL my hair out.

ME is too old to be supported IMO!, newer Intel Chipsets do not support older MS-DOS based Windows, W9x/ME.

FYI Analog Devices produce the SoundMax Audio Chipset but the drivers are written by the Motherboard Manufacturer.

If you run http://www.hwinfo.com in XP it will more than likely be listed as an "Intel ICH4 ADI or Soundmax" only IBM can supply drivers.

Thanks for responding, I was at my wits end!

Well, I have downloaded all the possible drivers from the IBM website. Interestingly they have drivers for NT 4.0 and windows 2000. (http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/product.do?template=/product.do?template=%2Fproductpage%2Flandingpages%2FproductPageLandingPage.vm&sitestyle=lenovo&brandind=11&familyind=121121&machineind=139258&modelind=139267&partnumberind=0&subcategoryind=0&doctypeind=9&doccategoryind=0&operatingsystemind=49980&validate=true)

that said, it could very well be that ME will never work with the integrated sound. If that is the case, I'd like to get a PCI soundcard for it. something simple and cheap,I have photos of the PCI slot at
http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com...

the overall card length would be about 5 inches. the length of the actual contact area (the slot) is about 3 1/2.
Can anybody tell me what to call the type of PCI card I'd be looking for? (mini? short? 5volt???)

Again, thanks for responding.

NT4 and NT5 aka W2000 have no relation to ME.

ME is a MS-DOS based O/S, the NT family have no MS-DOS subsystem

Disable the on-board sound in BIOS and install a PCI Sound Card around $15, new ones are standard size but make sure they come with W98Se or ME drivers.

I went back to double check what drivers were listed on the ibm site and found one didn't mention, a driver for windows 98SE. I don't know if that changes anything but I thought I'd mention it.

I think I am going to end up buying a sound card in any case. Any suggestions on brand?

(ps. if ME is ms-dos based, what is win2000 or xp based on?)

Thanks for you help

NT is based on IBM O/S2 see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window...

ME was the last MS-DOS based Windows:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window...

So as you will see the drivers have to be different at the base level where it needs to "talk" to Windows. If you can find a W98SE driver that will suffice for Millenium Edition.

Also read this, but M$ still offer the last updates thru Windows Updates at present:

http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lif...