I have an ECS P4VXMS 1.6GHZ Mainboard Sound on board. Had to reformat everything went fine but Did Not load any sound reformated again, still no sound had sound before. there R new Bios drivers for my board but don't wnat to change,because it can cause permant damage & I am disabled w/out much $ so I need to be sure. Help? bought & built my new system Dec.10,2001 always had sound before?

After you reformatted did you reinstall your sound card drivers? If it's an on-board sound card you probably still have to install drivers. Also, maybe you have the speakers plugged into the wrong hole or the volume is down all the way in Windows. Goto Start > All Programs > Accessories > Entertainment > Volume Control to check if the volume's down (or muted). You probably already know all this (you seem to know alot about computers since you know what reformatting is and what BIOS are) but I try my best to help. =P

something similar happened to me...i had onboard sound, but a program messed it up. after reinstalling my OS and stuff, it was still there. Re-installing the mainboard sound drivers fixed it and updating bios isn't hard...as long as you make sure you aren't at risk at having a power outage during the 3 minutes it takes to do it. Actually, this morning i began the bios update program, took a shower, and when i got back to my room, my bios was already updated :)

You do not need to flash (update) your bios but you do need to install the drivers for your sound card. They should be on the disk that came with the motherboard. Or you can get them online. If you know the name of your onboard sound. good luck

when you say know the name of the onboard are you on about the motherboard ????? if so all i have is K7s5a but can that be the name of a board ???? jordan