A year after I built a ECS KV2 system for CAD, I needed to run MIDI editing software.

I'd killed sound output during build / installation so our CAD_PC would not be 'borrowed' to play media. Now I needed to restore it.

I had the manual, I had the board drivers' disk, Windows claimed *everything* was working, just there was no audio device...

After much hair-tearing, google found an obscure forum comment that there's a soft-switch buried in the Integrated PCI Peripherals' sub-menus.

Purpose is to disable on-board sound if you fit a sound-card. I'd used it to mute the system.

Restart, DEL into BIOS, drill down and toggle, Save & Reboot, select the now-available Audio Device AC97 in Control Panel, problem solved.

Modern PCs do not have game-ports, so our old D15 MIDI adaptor was useless. I got a £ 30 UKP Mistar MIDILINK 'soap on rope' adaptor which has USB, MIDI IN & MIDI OUT flyleads. Plug & Play, no driver required for our XP...

D'uh, just remember that, as always, adaptor's MIDI IN cable connects to instrument MIDI OUT and vice-versa...

FWIW, our old 'Cakewalk Home Studio 3.0 for Win'98' loaded from original CD-ROM and ran okay under XP. Clunky, but fun. Only one grumble, it predates long names....