You might want to check and possibly upgrade your DirectX version. I recall having similar problems some time back on a Soltek - Duron machine, i used to tinker with it a lot and after one such session it just went deaf. I tried all stunts possible, swapping IRQs, changing memory etc, to no avail. Then something else happened which prompted me to upgrade the DX from 9.0b to c, and for reasons totally obscure to me my soundman was back and twice as clever as before. Magic it is, but there are ways to get around it
