Joystick Refuses to Connect

The short story: I have tried everything I can think of, and I still can't get my PC to recognize my joystick.

The long story:

Relevant portions of my system:
Epox 8KTA3 motherboard (VIA KT133A chipset)
AMD 1.2 GHz Athlon
640 MB PC133 DRAM
Diamond Monster Sound MX400
ATI Radeon LE 32MB DDR
Thrustmaster Attack Throttle w/ Top Gun joystick
CH Pedals (rudder pedals)
Windows 98

My overall system was working fine, but in the middle of playing "Crimson Skies," the game began to stutter (almost like I was out of memory) and then I lost my joystick. The game would respond to keyboard inputs, but not to the joystick.

I rebooted, thinking "Win98 bug," but now Win98 Control Panel/Game Controllers showed that my Attack Throttle was not connected.

I double-checked connections, rebooted, and still nothing. I rebooted into safe mode and removed any other game ports or sound card references in System Properties/Device Manager. No joy. I tried removing the Attack Throttle, then installing another joystick. No joy. I removed, then reinstalled, the MX400 drivers. No joy. I removed the MX400 completely and installed a Thrustmaster gameport card. No joy. I reinstalled Win98 - no joy. I've tried doing everything that I could think of and that Microsoft recommended at their troubleshooting site for Win98. I've played around with my BIOS, but haven't really seen any improvement (I have disabled the onboard audio and gameport). I have even bought a Rockfire USB-Nest, which connects joysticks to the USB port -- I can get Windows to recognize the joystick this way, but in games, I can't use my keyboard or mouse.

There were two things that happened soon (but not immediately) before I lost the joystick: I installed VIA's new 4-in-1 drivers and the VIA.INF, and I was overclocking my Radeon LE using Powerstrip.

I have now since gone back to the default memory speed for the Radeon, but I'm not sure how to remove the 4-in-1 drivers (or if they're even the problem).

I am at my wit's end on this one -- I would greatly appreciate any help anyone can lend.

Thanks,


Gary Bond
St. Louis, MO
garygbond@aol.com


"Be patient in affliction..."