i have the ESS Allegro sound card. recently ive been having problems with it...the sound stopped working the other day. after i tried updating the sound card driver using the file es198x.sys(which is asked for), it showed me a conflict in the system device manager. the problem it specifies is that the device driver for the ESS Allegro isnt working and needs update...ive been trying to do that for the past week. can anyone help me get this working? thanks
-rowen

first download the latest drivers and unzip them to a folder.
open the devicemanager and delete your soundcard (I suggest you also delete all mediadevices). Reboot and when it asks where to look for drivers, give in the folder where you placed the drivers. If it doesn't ask for a location and the sound still doesn't work, dubbleclick on the soundcard in the devicemanager and update the drivers from there.
JOhan

i tried that stuff...its all affiliated with this file e198x.sys...and it never works i still have no sound..thanks anyways tho

Is there a conflict in the device manager?
if not, try system restore and restore to a point before you were having this trouble. If even that doesn't work, i think you'll need to re-install windows (delete the windows-folder first from in dos).
JOhan

It happens to me, once in a while. For no reason I can think of, my computer stops making sounds. I simply restore to a point when I'm sure I had sounds and it works everytime.