You May also be having a motherboard conflict i.e. not enough IRQ resorces. This is especially true if you have lots of PCI / IDE slots and connectors in use, multi part sound cards like the top end Sound Blaster range are particularly suseptable to resource trouble and a complete pain in the ass to set up on many motherboards. The S/ Blaster 'Aulergy' has the midi (joy stick) socket in another PCI slot instead and is a real pain to make it work.