I have a problem with onboard sound on a Gigabyte GA-7DXR motherboard, am
trying to determine if the fault is with the software drivers, or if the
AC97 codec is really dead or not there.  I have Linux (Slackware 11.0)
installed, also FreeBSD 6.2, have also made and run live CDs for NetBSD 2007
(v4 beta), Mepis (Linux), OliveBSD (based on OpenBSD), and the DOSDRV on the
CD also doesn't work (no specific messages there).  I  have never had any
sound at all with this motherboard/sound card and am getting ready to buy an
add-on PCI sound card (or USB?).  CPU is AMD Athlon 1400 MHz, I have 40 GB 
Western Digital hard drive.  Other installed OS, besides Linux and FreeBSD,
is DR-DOS 7.03.  I have a logical partition where I could install a 180-day
evaluation version of MS-Windows Server 2003 from a CD that I received in the
mail unsolicited, or could install NetBSD 3.1.  I show the pertinent portions 
of the dmesg files, or /var/log/syslog in the case of Slackware.

Following is from NetBSD 2007 live CD dmesg:

eap0: interrupting at irq 10
eap0: ac97: unknown (0x00000000) codec; no 3D stereo
audio0 at eap0: full duplex, mmap, independent
midi0 at eap0: AudioPCI MIDI UART
puc0 at pci0 dev 15 function 0: US Robotics (3Com) 3CP5609 PCI 16550 Modem (com)

Following is from FreeBSD 6.2 installation dmesg:

pcm0: <Creative CT5880-D> port 0xd400-0xd43f irq 10 at device 14.0 on pci0
pcm0: AC97 reset timed out.
pcm0: ac97 codec invalid or not present (id == 0)
device_attach: pcm0 attach returned 6

Following is from OliveBSD live CD:

eap0 at pci0 dev 14 function 0 "Ensoniq CT5880" rev 0x03: irq 10
eap0: eap1371_read_codec timeout 2
ac97: codec id not read
audio0 at eap0
midi0 at eap0: <AudioPCI MIDI UART>

Following is from Mepis (Linux) live CD:

[17179612.820000] ALSA /usr/src/modules/alsa-driver/pci/ac97/ac97_codec.c:2060: AC'97 0 access is not valid [0x0], removing mixer.
[17179612.836000] ACPI: PCI interrupt for device 0000:00:0e.0 disabled
[17179612.836000] ENS1371: probe of 0000:00:0e.0 failed with error -5
[17179613.100000] fuse init (API version 7.8)

With Slackware (Linux) installation, nothing about sound card showed in 
dmesg, but the info showed in /var/log/syslog:

Jul 16 08:55:33 darkstar kernel: ALSA ac97_codec.c:1919: AC'97 0 access is not valid [0x0], removing mixer.
Jul 16 08:55:33 darkstar insmod: /lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/sound/pci/snd-ens1371.o.gz: init_module: No such device
Jul 16 08:55:33 darkstar insmod: /lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/sound/pci/snd-ens1371.o.gz: Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.       You may find more information in syslog or the output from dmesg
Jul 16 08:55:33 darkstar insmod: /lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/sound/pci/snd-ens1371.o.gz: insmod snd-ens1371 failed

and these lines were repeated many times, as if once weren't enough.

Should I just go ahead and buy a PCI sound card, or is there any sense in
making any further attempts with Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, or the 180-day
evaluation version of Windows Server 2003?  I feel like I'm just beating a
dead horse, or dead sound chip/AC97 codec.

Tom