Hi everyone, I am at a complete and total loss here. :-( Some background information, the history of this system and it's set up I think will be in place. With that said, I apologies in advance for the lengthy post and I hope you will bear with me. Ever since little over two months ago some or all, depends on the OS, audio playback capabilities have stopped functioning on this particular system. Years ago it happened on this very same box whilst it was running WinME, after trying everything I could think of I got rid of WinME and went for the current triple boot where my initial goal at the time was a quadruple boot. Due to the lack of sufficient disk space, 20 GB, I soon dropped WinNT 4 and went on with the current triple boot configuration. It has taken me a great deal of time and efforts to have all OS's default to the very same (personal)data folder, on the D: drive, for each (4) user. Win98, on the C: drive, was a piece of cake with the system policy editor. Win2K and XP (on the E: drive) were, and would again be, the great challenge. Believe me, I don't feel like taking up that challenge once again if there is the slightest possibility to avoid it. The system is connected to a amplifier which is not always turned on, and therefor I probably haven't noticed the loss of sound for a while. It's only turned on when I want to watch a live broadcast, that can be space shuttle flight coverage, speed skating events, motorsport especially at Zandvoort (that is in The Netherlands) or listen to radio broadcasts. The system is up-to-date with it's AV and M$ updates on all three OS's as far as possible except for the Windows Media player. It's regularly checked with CCleaner, Ad-Aware, Spybot, Windows Defender and other utils. In Win98 it is still possible to playback Music CD's, with Win98 it's build in CD player, any other type of audio files or streams through Media player or others are a no go. In Win2K and XP absolutely nothing plays, not with Windows Media Player or any other player. Okay, I think that about wraps it up on the background and history, now to the things I have already done within all three OS's. * I have reinstalled the Sound card drivers, * I have uninstalled and reinstalled the Sound card drivers, * I have disabled the Sound card in the BIOS and uninstalled the Sound card drivers, rebooted the system at least two times. Turned back on the the Sound card in the BIOS and installed the Sound card drivers, * I have reapplied SP4 for Win2K and SP2 for WinXP to no avail, * Now I am out of ideas... Win98 does playback Music CD's, Win2K and XP don't. With all the OS's, in Control Panel => Sounds, the default Windows sounds (.wav) looks like playing infinite but there is no output to the speakers. MP3 files seem to only play with the original Windows Media player, without output to the speaker of course, once Media player is updated the MP3 files don't even start to play. Last but not least the system I am talking about here has a PCChips M810L series MoBo with a SiS730S chipset, including a SiS630/730 Video chip and a SiS7018 (AMR slot) Audio chip. I can live with the sound back on any of the three OS's, all three would be preferred of course. :-) Thanks for taking the time to read this lengthy post and thanks in advance for your help. Best Regards and Wishes, The Count, Co-webmaster of mesich.com

Hi everyone, In addition to the above, I miss the edit option in my OP, the sound is nowhere set to Mute in case you might have thought that I didn't check that. And the volume sliders are all set to the top/max. :-) Best Regards and Wishes, The Count, Co-webmaster of mesich.com

My guess would be that your sound card is failing. This to me would be the only reason why you'd have problems in all 3 operating systems. IMO, I think you should try a different sound card. Jesus can change your life for the better!!

Hi RWD1996, hi everyone Apologies for not replying sooner, there is this time zone difference as I as some of you know live in The Netherlands (or not, some of you question that ;-)) Not exactly what I was/am hoping for to hear, but I will keep it in mind thanks. If there isn't a software issue/solution to check and resolve this problem, I will take out a sound card from a other system and see how that goes. But since I have had this occurring on me with this box, years ago while running WinMe, I would for now like to believe it is some weird software mess up. Again if there aren't any other software related issues I could check, I will try a different sound card but that will most likely not be earlier than the upcoming weekend. :-( I will try to sooner than that, but can’t make any promises. In the meanwhile I'll keep an eye on for any software solutions offered here. Best Regards and Wishes, The Count, Co-webmaster of mesich.com (Local time: December 11, 2007 at 00:09:30)

Well like I said, it's a guess. I have no other ideas I'm afraid. But like you said, someone else may come along with ideas. I don't know what the problem could be software speaking. Jesus can change your life for the better!!

Hi RWD1996, hi everyone Once again apologies for the delayed reply... I finally had the time to take out a working soundcard from a other system and place it in the box in question. The drivers for this soundcard have been installed, Windows see the card perfectly and tells that the devices is working properly but still there isn't the slightest bit of audio output. Not through the speakers, not through a headphone. There is one small bit of improvement, the default Windows sounds (although in silent mode) are no longer playing infinitely. Best Regards and Wishes, The Count, Co-webmaster of mesich.com