I have an ATI 9800 and onboard sound on my Abit NF7 motherboard using Realtek AC97 drivers. Running XP.
I tried to install an Powercolor ATI 3650 AGP card my friend gave me. Having installed the drivers and rebooting, the system would not boot - hung at Windows splash screen. I think this is because my PSU is not powerful enough.
That's not the problem though. When I uninstalled the 3650 and reinstalled the 9800, it seems my sound has been messed up. The microphone no longer works - when I try to speak, people just hear my sound output - music etc - but not my voice. Like it has been set to 5.1 sound. It does not appear that it has though - it is set to desktop stereo 2 speakers, which is what I have.
I tried uninstalling he AC97 drivers and reinstalling but it doesn't help. It is the same using a different mic. I even did a system restore to a point before I tried the 3650, but it makes no difference.
The 3650 says it comes with 5.1 sound over HDMI - is it possible it changed my sound settings somehow?
maybe it did, but it is not set at that now - the only options showing are for AC97 and Modem - it is set to AC97.
I'm thinking the problem is to do with the fact that the board didn't work and I uninstalled the drivers again. The PC did not successfully boot into Windows after the 3650 drivers were loaded.
Take a look at the BIOS setup for sound - if Auto, set to Enable, save & reboot. I had same problem on a 3450. It may work for you. This was ATI/ASUS support desk suggestion.