All of these problems appear to be the result of not having installed the chipset drivers for your motherboard.  Since the ethernet adapter and the audio adapter are integrated on the motherboard, they will not be recognized by Windows until the chipset drivers are present.  Once the chipset drivers are present you will need to install the drivers for the ethernet adapter and the audio controller (probably the video card as well).  All of these drivers should be on the Dell Resource CD.  They can also be downloaded from the Dell Support site by clicking on the Product Support tab at the top left of the Dell forum window.   I could provide direct links and instructions for your particular model, but you have not said which model computer you have.

Steve

Yes, the MCI message makes sense because the drivers for the multimedia audio controller are not installed.

See the following document for intructions on installing all the drivers.  Be sure to do the chipset drivers first.

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

Look under "Install Drivers and Software"

Steve

That's because I couldn't remember - but I've checked & it's Dimension 4550.

Does that MCI error message make any sense?

Thank you!

I am saved!  I did as you suggested and reinstalled the chipset and the other drivers and now it is golden.  I'm a believer.

Thank you a million times.