Hello, I was updating some software and in the process lost my sound. I have done the following many times over the past few days with no result. When I run (dxdiag / music tab / test directmusic), I get an error for "no driver". When I go into the Device Manager tab (Sound), the ES1869 Plug & Play AudioDrive (WDM) has an "!". The Properties description reads: "The NTKERN.VXD, MMDEVLDR.VXD device loaders for this device could not load the device driver (Code 2). To fix this, click Update Driver to update the device driver." I clicked "Update Driver" and it tells me that the best driver for this device (ES1869 Plug&Play AusioDrive) is already installed but that I can reinstall it. I clicked to reinstall it (c:\windows\INF\wdma_ess.inf), rebooted my PC and ... still same problem with the sound card and no sound. I also went into Safe Mode and deleted all the drivers in the Sound section, reloaded them on restart and same problem Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Is it an older ISA Soundcard? Check the Interupt Request settings for the rest of your hardware. An old ISA card will probably want to use IRQ 5. Also...move the card to the very last ISA slot (farthest away from the PCI slots).

Thank you for your reponse. It is a sound card from 1998 and does use an IRQ 5. But there don't appear to be any conflicts. I also moved the card to the end away from the PCI slots. Same problem though. Any other ideas? Thank you.