thesleepymoose

Hi, I've been trying to solve this "no audio issue" for about a week now. The volume panel doesn't load on startup, when I try:
START>All Programs>Accessories>Entertainment>Volume Control
I get the infamous "There are no active mixer devices available..." error and volume control shuts down.

Midi works however, so at least I know all the connections to the speakers are okay.

I'm running Windows XP Home SP2 on an Intel D845GRG m/board; 2.4GHz P4;
a Radeon X1300 PCI video card; a Creative SB X-Fi soundcard; and have all the updates available.

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling audio drivers, taking out the soundcard and uninstalling Soundblaster software and then re-installing. Then I tried a re-install of Xp over the top and spent ages fixing an auto update problem before getting all the updates. I've tried switching the onboard audio off in BIOS, even tho it wasn't a problem before and re-did all the above with that BIOS setting.

I'm lost I don't know what else to try.

My audio devices in device mnger look as follows:

Sound,video and game controllers
-Audio codecs ("This device is working properly.")
-Creative SB X-Fi (Audio, Midi and Mixer devices installed
and "This device is working properly.")
-Legacy audio drivers (Midi device installed only and "This
device is working properly.")
-Legacy video capture Devices (This device is working properly.)
-Media Control Devices (This device is working properly.)
-Media Control Devices (This device is working properly.)
-Microsoft Kernal DLS Synthesizer (yellow "!" = Windows cannot load the
device driver for this hardware
because there is a duplicate device
already running in the system.
(Code42))
-Microsoft Kernal System Audio Device (This device is working properly.)
-Microsoft WINMM WDM Audio Compatibility Driver (This device is working properly.)
-SoundMAX integrated Digital Audio (Audio, Midi and Mixer devices
installed and "This device is working
properly.")
-Video Codecs (This device is working properly.)

I can't, for the life of me, figure this out. Please help.

A pre-emptive thanks to anyone who can help.