No Sound with WinXP & hard drive partitions questions ?

Hi everyone !

Please Help:

I built my new computer a couple days ago. The computer has the
following components:

======================== My computer info ======================

Computer
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Professional

1. Motherboard (MSI PT880 Neo motherboard)
CPU Type Intel Pentium 4E, 3200 MHz (4 x 800)
Motherboard Chipset VIA Apollo PT880
System Memory 256 MB
BIOS Type AMI (10/22/04)

2. Display
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 (128 MB)
Monitor HP Pavilion MX50 (THTBR09391)

3. Multimedia
Audio Adapter (onboard) VIA AC'97 Enhanced Audio Controller

Storage
Hard drive Segate (120 GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/100)

Partitions
C: (NTFS) 114470 MB (111564 MB free)

Modem Lucent Win Modem

================================================== ================

Problems with my computer:

1. I can't get the sound working. Sometimes this evening, I installed a
Phillps (PSC 604 soundcard - 32 bit PCI) with dynamic edge 4.1
software.
When I disabled onbard sound card, my computer got sound, but not very
loud even though I turn the the volume maximum ( sadly, i gotta put my
ear next to my speakers to hear a song ). But that
is not it, during playback, when less than half of my song is played
back, my computer suddenly restart for no reason without any warning.
This happened a couple times. I got tired, then
I unstalled this sound card (both driver and physical hardware).

2. I turned back to use my onbard sound card, set the BIOS back to use
onbard sound card, install the driver for this soundcard again. Then, I
was able to listen
to my songs in the CD with the same audio quality as I wrote in the
first part. However, the sound is
stopped (no sound) from my speaker when I try to play the CD again OR
After restarting my computer.
Now, my computer has no sound

I have looked up the internet, may newsgroup to solve this problem, but
seem like I am getting nowhere.

Does anybody have the same problems as I do ?

1. I intend to buy another sound card (not an expensive one, but maybe
less than $50), what would be your
recommendation for the sound card ?

2. If you insist that I should work with the onbard sound card, then
What should I do at this point?

3. Oh, another thing. I tried to have 3 partitions ( 40 MB each) on my
hard drive when I tried to re-install
XP, but It wouldn't let me delete the Primary partition (the only one
partition) that I had when I
first installed XP the first time.

Do you know any software (free maybe) that would allow me to divide my
disk to 3 partitions ?
My friends told me Norton Ghost or Partition Magic would be great, but
I can't buy them
at this time, a free software would be great !!!!


I am really sorry for a lengthy message. Any help would be appreciated
!!

Thank you in advance !

John

Hi all ! me again


I think I solved half of my problems. When I disconnected my speakers
and plugged in my headphones to the right audio spot, I could hear
audio fine, but not loud enough even though I alrealdy turned the
volume up maximum in both Window media player and volume controller.
Anybody know how to make the volume turn up a little more ?

So, the problem is maybe with my speakers. Maybe I need to buy a new
set of speakers.

However, Others problem occur include:

1. My computer restart for no reason when I surf the web with IE.6
which comes with WinXP and when I play music from a CD ROM for a little
while. These things don't happen often though.

Does anybody have any idea what went wrong here ?

2. After running for a while, I noticed my computer was pretty hot even
I left the case open.
The case only has one fan. I want to add another fan to it, but my
motherboard only has one system
fan connector. Is there anyway that I could make 2 fans share a same
system fan connector ?


Thank you for any input !

John