I am in a mess with a ac97 sound. Tried to update driver and have ended up without any sound!! It's a long story, but tried to correct a sound quality problem with 'gigabyte's correct latest driver, then 'avance's driver and original xp driver. This trying different things caused major problem. However, when I deinstall the sound card, on reboot Xp "helpfully" reinstalls the last driver I tried. I have in safe mode deleted the xxxx.sys files from ..\system32\drivers, but xp must keep a record of the last driver's name, and it "helpfully" recoves it for me. If I try to manually select a driver, Xp says I am up to date without replacing the old one. A reinstall of Xp didnt help. So is the registry wrong?!? Obviously, want to totally remove all software/settings related to this device and start device installation again --- all I can think of now is a new Xp installation!! Anyone have any ideas? pls pls.