Missing Audio Controller

[Pent uP Rage]

Okay, I am thoroughly stumped...and sorry, but it's a long one. I appreciate ANY help whatsoever.

I'll start with specs:

P4 3.0c
ABIT IC7G
1Gb Crucial Ballistix PC4000
Nvidia BFG 7800GS
SB Audigy 2 Platinum

Yesterday while playing M2:TW, all my units go into a rout cycle, my sound card suddenly screeches in my ear, my system locks up, and I have to reboot.
Upon getting back into the desktop, I have no sound. None.

I check the Sounds and Audio Properties and it says that there is NO audio device. No card, no drivers, nothing.
Under the Device Manager, all the entries for my sound card and its' drivers are gone.
So, I check the Add/Remove Programs...same thing. The only instance of Creative is the Audio Console(which can't be used without the drivers.)
So, I download the current drivers from Creative. The installer says that I have no supported sound device installed.
I turned the PC off and tried different PCI slots...all with the same results.
Well great, my sound card must be dead. So, I try to enable the onboard sound. Nothing. All the same problems.
I went back into BIOS and disabled it again, when I get back to the desktop, I check the Device Manager and now I have the Yellow Exclamation next to Multimedia Audio Controllers. But when I try to update the drivers, it says I have no audio device installed.
So, I go BACK into BIOS again and check the IRQ settings and discover that all the IRQ resources for the PCI slots are blank.
I have updated the chipset to as current as possible. I have used both updated sound card and onboard drivers.

So this just leads me to believe that something has died...is it the motherboard? or the sound card? OR was the game I was playing ******* up my IRQ so badly that it has hosed my system?
I like my system, but a replacement motherboard would be as much as buying a new 955 board.

[PyrrhusIV]

I know when my decent Sound Card went, it just suddenly died, and had lots of screaching, fuzz etc. I couldnt get the onboard sound to work either, so I ended up buying one of the Audigy SE's for $30....

Maybe your card died, but it seems you've already tried.... doesnt hurt to just run some basic diagnostics though.... do you happen to have a random audio card laying around?

[Pent uP Rage]

Nope, no spare sound card. But I DID get the onboard sound working, as crappy as it sounds. It sounds HORRIBLE for TeamSpeak or Ventrillo.
I still haven't yet discovered if it's my PCI slots or the card itself that died, but at least I have SOME sort of sound.
I hope it's the card. Replacing this motherboard would be more expensive than just buying a new cpu/mobo combo.