My computer freaked out a few days ago and has had various issues since- the one I'm asking here has to do with my SoundMax Digital Audio Card on my Sony Desktop Vaio (model PCV-RX 462DS) I'm getting the note: "enabled but inactive due to an unknown problem" and when I ran DirectX, under "Music" i was able to play the sample sound fine, but under "sound" it said "Direct Sound Test results: failure at Step 3 (DirectSoundCreate) HRESULT=0x80004005. I'm confused and think it could be a mixup in my system.ini file? If it is, I would greatly appreciate someone help me repair/check lines in it. Thanks!

I thought SoundMax was an integrated sound chip not a card. I had a similar problem when I used SoundMax which I solved by downloading and installing the latest drivers even if I was current.

I had a similar problem once with Soundmax, after installing a program all sound was lost, uninstalling the program did not help. I tried several steps to try to resolve the issue, reinstalling sound drivers etc. I finally solved it by using System Restore to a time before I installed the troublesome program and thank goodness it fixed the problem. I now have System Restore disabled (yikes!). I have used scanreg /restore (from the run dialogue) a couple of times since I disabled SR when I made a mistake or two and that has always (so far anyway) fixed any problems I created, but nothing to do with Soundmax.

"My computer freaked out a few days ago" ...care to elaborate on what happened & how? Something caused it to "freak out"...did you make any changes or install any programs?

1. Soundmax could very well be a chip versus a card. I'm computer savvy only to a certain degree. 2. System Restore has never once worked on my computer. I think it's time to upgrade to XP. 3. "Freaked out" = unknown problems. I started it up and the mouse cursor was AWOL and icons were enlarged. I don't know what caused it, but I was able to get it up and running again to a degree.