Hi I have just build a PC, I installed vista and my onboard sound card does not show up in device manager or when i try to install the driver. The sound chip is a c media 6501, this company provides minimal support and has even shut down registration to their forums. Has anyone got any ideas as to what the problem could be?
Thank you in advance.

No driver availiable for vista is my guess. Buy yourself a cheap PCI sound card, but before you do, research and make sure there are drivers availiable.

EDIT: sorry, did you get drivers and it cant be seen by windows? Either way, the above will fix it.

Have you checked at the manufacturer of the motherboard if there are Vista drivers?

Yeah there are vista driver that isnt the problem,, when installed keeps telling me to plug in the card...even though its an onboard, im so confused
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Is the on-board enabled in the BIOS? Sounds like it is not even being recognized by the OS. Go into setup in your BIOS if you know how and try enabling the on-board sound device.

I have made sure already the onboard sound is enabled in the bios, any other suggestions?

go to device manager, remove all devices remotely related to multimedia, then reboot. Works for me, maybe not so much you.

Sounds good. And be sure there are not any yellow flags in device manager for devices without drivers. If nothing helps to get the OS to detect the card then try installing a copy of XP if you have one. If XP doesn't detect it either you might try updating your BIOS and if none of that works you may have a bad sound card chip.