[Bee117]

Back story:

My house (and in turn) computer was struck by lightning. The why my computer was on, isn't the point, it happened over a year ago. My internet at school was fine, no disconnecting etc. When I graduated and came home this summer, it started acting up horribly. Lots of kicking off. Several friends recommended that I just buy a new PCI ethernet card. Simple and cheap fix and now everything with that is dandy.

Now:

My sound does not work. My original Sound Blaster Audigy 2 (I am on a 3.5 year old computer) stopped showing up in the Device Manager entirely. I noticed my sound "device" was the Realtek AC97 onboard sound.

Here's a list of what I've tried thus far:

1. turned off computer and checked connection of said card, it was loose, secured card in slot, checked all connections to card. Turned on computer, card is still not recognized.
2. Have checked BIOS settings and onboard sound is disabled. It was on auto, I just plain turned it off. No luck.
3. Have tried disabling new ethernet card, still no luck.

After this, I have generally assumed that my card is just plain broken if the computer is still not recognizing it whatsoever. I buy a Sound Blaster Audigy SE. I installed the new card, computer recognizes it, drivers all installed and updated. Device manager and SiSandra all say it's working great. I still do not have any sound. Now a new issue is that, and I do not know if these are related or merely coincidences, itunes will not play, winamp will not play, youtube does not play. I've yet to try anything else to play sound at the moment.

I am restarting my computer in between trying different settings. I know that can affect changes with new installations etc.

The only thing that brings up a red flag is the fact that in the IRQ my video card, sound card, and something called: VIA CHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller all share PCI 16. Could this be contributing to my problem? Or possibly be the problem?

Any help of suggestions would be extremely appreciated. All explanations would be best given as simply as possible as I'm not terribly well versed in computer hardware issues. Thank you!

[Carbon]

Definitely sounds like IRQ to me. If not that, I'd replace the motherboard, but IRQ should be a easier fix.

[Bee117]

Okay, how do you go about changing stuff in there? I only found out about the IRQ the other week so I really know nothing about it.

I definitely would prefer not to deal with the motherboard if I can.

[Carbon]

Easiest way is to just seat it in another slot and see if that fixes it. That should resolve the IRQ conflict.

[Bee117]

Okay, thank you! I'm heading to bed now, but I will give it a shot when I return home after work tomorrow.

[Bee117]

My problem was solved with this solution! Thank you very much.