just a suggestion, you may want to DL the new 815E drivers from intel and install it... this may work... also, if you are clocked or tweaked in any way, the onboard ound may not like it and refuse to start... i have this problem with one of my computers, the "pci bus" on the onboard sound won't take clocking... or rather my bios is limited and cannot support "spread spectrum" on higher fsb speeds... hope this helps...