btw - i first tried directx 8.1 (which i had already) and then i tried directx v9.0 with same results. I tried to downgrade to 5.0 after i did a directx buster. not sure if it correctly downgraded (got error running dxdiag). anyways, still didn't work. The dxdiag tests for sound do work fine no matt...

ESS Maestro-3i soundcard on my latitude c600 dell laptop. I've installed latest drivers (including dos emulation) from dell (ess says to get them from dell). I've tried changing the sound card settings to basic, advanced, etc. (ie. varying degrees of sound card supported features) without it working...