Well, everything was okay at first, I installed the sound card and it worked okay, for about 10 minutes. Then the sound stopped working, so I went to the diagnostic mode in the mp3+ volume control. Hardware passed the diagnostic okay, but it looked like the software hadn't been properly installed, so I tried installing from the CD again. Still no sound, so I decided to uninstall and start again.

Trouble is, having uninstalled, I am now stuck. Windows will only detect the sound card as an unknown device (no matter how many times I remove it, it always comes back), and the blue LED that is supposed to indicate that sound card's connected remains annoyingly dark (it doesn't even flash). I've tried plugging it into 4 different USB ports, but no luck.

I tried to make Windows search the setup CD for drivers, but no luck. Also, running setup from the CD always fails- it gives me "cannot detect a Soundblaster USB audio on your system" and then exits. What do I do now to get the thing working?

I'm using Windows 98 SE on an AST Century City (500 MHz) desktop. If anoyone does have any suggestions/proposed solutions, explain them to me as you would a child

Have you installed the proper USB drivers? W98 only supports some rudimentary USB without special drivers for your USB-equipment.