I an dual booting me and xp together, but in windows me the sound crackles and pops and after a half an hour there is no sound at all. They are also the correct drivers and I reinstalled windows 5 times. In windows xp the sound is amazingly clear and no distortion so it is not the card. It is a Via AC97 (VT82C686B).

hello i,ve had the same problem in m.e you can try the things in this link http://www.burzurq.com/forum/trevtweak.html how 2 run m.e well ver.4 and check device manager for errors. i ended up getting a cheep sound blaster 16 sound card that solved the proble. m.e and onboard sound seems to be quite problimatic.

Same here , I had AC97 onboard sound and it would work sometimes and not work most of the time .I tried troubleshooting the problem with the support from the OEM of my PC. Never could get it working ,came down to boxing it back up and sending it back or installing a sound card.I decided on the sound card and not only does my sound always work now ,its beeter sound .Remenber that a good set of speakers is also important to quality sound !If you decide to go for a sound card ,remember to disable the onboard sound in your BIOS! Good Luck Nick

Thanks Nick and Wavadave for your help. I read some other messages about the AC97 and I came to conclusion that it is just junk. One of my friends says he has a sound blaster live that he will sell me for $50, so I'll see if that will work better, glad to know that I am not the only one with ac97 problems. Thanks, Dave