Suffering the AC97 Audio nightmare

Hi,
i am running XP windows home. I deleted a partition and reformatted my computer and now cannot access sound. An ! comes up against AC97 Audio device in Device Manager. I have re-installed driver but no luck. The error it continually comes up with is code 39. I have downloaded all chipset updates from MSI that was needed and still to no avail. Im just about at my wits end, ive been fighting with this problem for over two weeks now. Is it my sound card?..Is the best idea to throw it out and replace it?....im just about out of options. I would appreciate greatly any advice on this problem. thankyou, fily.

From what I've heard, AC97 is a sound codec standard. I wouldn't scrap your sound card immidiately. First I would try to figure out if this is an AC97 chip on your motherboard that is causing the problem. Maybe you could remove your sound card and see if the device is still showing up.

I have encountered similar problems when reformatting. I've heard of simply people having luck simply by changing the PCI slot of the add-in card.

Good luck.