THANKS to all the helping hands.

The consensus would be for me to install the Intel Chipset drivers and should
resolve the issue according to most.. But while I thought I was running Win98SE,
it was in fact Win98 original. And the Intel Chipset drivers will not install under
anything below 98SE... I had no choice but to call a friend who is now under XP,
and got his older Win2k, for a reasonnable price.

Updating to 2k now allows me to install all drivers flawlessly so far.
I'll pick up from there.

But without your recommendations, I would not have installed these valuable
Intel chipset drivers; thinking it was just an optional PnP utility.
The readme file for the Intel chipset drivers is clear.. Win98 gold is not supported.
So I gave-up and nows run under 2KPro, sounds enabled.
I also did not have to FIX the OS using that NDIS hot patch for P4 2Ghz and above.

Thanks again.