sound card suddenly silent

Hello everyone,

The problem:

I was viewing a video clip in the wmv format, yesterday. Near the end
of the eighteen minute clip, the sound suddenly died.

My first suspects were the speakers but they are fine. I checked them
with another pc. I also checked the problem-pc with some working
head-phones. No luck. I checked *all* the volume settings. I have
unistalled the drivers, restarted the pc, reinstalled the drivers.
Rolled back to the default drivers, checked all the settings in the
device driver, no conflicts, everything fine there. Then i plugged in a
mike and ran sound recorder. No luck there either. It didn't register
any of my voice input. I downloaded latest sound drivers, still
nothing.

Finally, i got out my usb and installed on it Damn Small Linux, a
variant of Knoppix and booted from there, it detected the card fine. I
ran an mp3 in xmms, still nothing.

Now here is what's bothering me, the differnt players that i have tried
in windows and linux, do not complain at all! They think everything is
fine but i am getting no sound. I disabled the onboard sound card from
bios and now the media players start complaining.

What could be wrong here? How can i pinpoint the problem?

TIA...

The Specs:

Softwa

Windows xp Professional, sp2 with all the latest patches drivers
and everything.

Hardwa

Processor: Intel Celeron-D 2.4 Ghz
Motherboard: MSI P4MAM-V

(http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p...M-V&class=3Dmb)
Audio: AC'97 link controller integrated in VIA=AE VT8235
VIA VT1616 6-channel S/W audio codec.