Onboard sound won't work (realtek)

[gotekix]

Ok here's the situation, my friend is using an athlon xp on a MSI KM2M Combo board. He says he had a random shut down the other day then when he booted back up he had no sound. It has built in realtek ac97 sound. I checked to see that onboard sound was enabled in the bios, which it was, and even uninstalled and reinstalled about 3 different realtek drivers with no luck. Anyone had a similar situation and some ideas on how to get the sound working? My friend's on a tight budget, so the last thing he wants to do is spend money unless its completely necessary.

 

[FlyingPenguin]

If he's running XP you can try using system restore to go back a week before this happened (go back AT LEAST A WEEK due to the way system restore works) and see if that fixes it.

If the chip is dead, a replacement card won't cost THAT much. Any decent C-Media card like this will do, $15 shipped:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829120102

 

[helpmeout]

I had audio probs with that Realtek onboard on both my Asus and Abit boards. Put in cheap SB cards, and no prob since.