new zForce F2 sound doesn't work - updated drivers?

I just bought a new zForce F2, and the sound doesn't work at all. I've checked volume controls, and nothing is muted, sound is turned up. I've tried dvds, wmas, and mp3s. I've looked in device manager, and everything looks cool.

The audio driver is listed as "Crystal WDM AC'97 Driver for ICH4" by "Applied Drivers Corporation", for which I didn't have much luck finding drivers online. I read somewhere that sometimes other manufacturers drivers are listed by windows as "Crystal WDM"... ABS' site's drivers list is almost useless (the only thing they had for the zforce f2 was a link to microsoft's site to download mouse drivers!).

This may (will) sound wierd, but I'm kind of looking forward to calling their tech support to have them fix this, cause I want to know how it's going to be when I actually have a serious problem down the road (while I'm still in the 30 day window where I can return it). But, it would be nice to try at least updating the drivers first... I think it was either Xsterminator's or devast's review page that had links to a lot of the drivers, but the audio link was broken.

If I knew what the actual manufacturer was, I might be able to find it on www.soundcard-drivers.com...

Thanks in advance for advice and suggestions,
Steve

Well I for one, am an f'ing idiot (with apologies for my profanity). In my attempts to solve my "no audio" problem, I spent a few hours researching and downloading audio drivers from Cirrus, Crystal, and other driver sites online. Plenty of time spent checking audio & codec driver properties, versions, etc. I reinstalled the audio drivers from the utility cd (the only reliable place to find the drivers... don't lose that cd! I just burned a backup copy of it, partly to break in my cd burner. ).

And none of that worked!! So as I'm getting ready to reboot my laptop, and am waiting for the cd burn to finish, I started looking at the generic "Note Book User's guide" that accompanied the laptop. Just for kicks, I look at the audio section (I'm really just looking over it, to see if the laptop had any features I wasn't aware of)... well guess what?? The laptop has a volume button, and it's turned all the way down! (I don't know if I did this when I first got it, or if it came like that... bad idea to send out computers like that though, ABS)

So, I feel a bit ridiculous that I checked every single software property control (including volume) that I could think of, before accidently stumbling on the hardware volume control dial! The more you know about computers, the more blind you become to obvious solutions???

Embarrased in Virginia

Sure thing! Since I got a lot out of reading others' reviews of laptops during the month or so when I was deciding on mine, I certainly am planning on posting a review of the F2. But I'd like to wait til I've had it for 3-4 wks, so I've got an opinion on it. Overall I must say so far, very nice!!! Only 1 or 2 really small things have annoyed me about it so far.

Steve