whats happening to hardware these days? my soundcard failed so I brought a new one with a CMI8738 chipset and when I played mp3s it sounded so tinny and the highs were all distorted - So I then got a secondhand Yamaha yfm719 ISA and it sounded warm and crisp - and im not even gonna start on the winmodem I brought! Why are we getting hit with all this crap! the sound card has only 1 I.C on its boardwhile the old one has 4 or 5 - whats next??? win ADSL modems?

Like most consumer goods pc components are throw away items.

I think that Winmodems should actually be sold like cigarettes in packs of 20. That would probably get most people through a week. I have bought one winmodem, it died after 6 months. Since then I have pulled winmodems out of old computers and given about 5 of them to people, (they were still working when I gave them away). All have passed away, (the modems not the people). My sister-in-law just called today because her winmodem bit the dust. I sent her to a computer shop and she bought a used 33.6 for $9.00. I'm sure it will last her a few years at least.

I don't even wanna buy a mainboard that doesn't have ISA slots available for my old hardware. I wish other people would be like me so new boards would still have ISA slots....