wrote in message
oups.com...

Hello,

I have a problem that I haven't seen here yet, although I expect it is
here somewhere.

I have a desktop PC, 350 MHz, running Win98SE.

One day it "lost" the sound card. I re-installed it, and went through
all the steps of installing drivers. Windows said it was installed
correctly.

But when I try to *use* the sound card, Windows Media Player comes on,
then I get an error message that says:
"Windows Media Player cannot play the file because there is a problem
with your sound device. There may not be a sound device installed on
your computer, it may be in use by another program, or it may not be
functioning properly."

So I put in a different sound card. Same error message. This has now
happened for 4 sound cards in 4 different slots ( 2 ISA, 2 PCI ).

Now here are the questions:
1. Is the problem more likely to be in . . .
(a) the motherboard, not connecting properly with the sound card?
(b) the interrupts or some similar resource?
(c) Windows 98?
(d) Windows Media Player?

2. What can I do about it?

Thank you for all replies!

Ted Shoemaker

Just a suggestion.
Boot into Safe Mode and go into Device Manager and delete all the listings under
the Sound,Video,and game controllers that pertain to a sound card.
Reboot back into Normal (if there really is such a thing) Windows and reinstall
your sound card drivers. Perhaps it will work.
Still doesn't work? Try uninstalling the sound card and then uninstall WMP and
reboot. Then install the sound card drivers again and reboot and then install
WMP again.
This shouldn't take long and is something you can try while waiting for other
suggestions.
PS: If you are on dial-up, it may take some time to download WMP again.
Maybe even try a program like WinAmp instead of WMP.