Most likely, you failed to install the Intel chipset drivers, which MUST be installed before installing any device drivers.  The Multimedia Audio Controller is part of the audio and gets installed with the sound card drivers.

 

You can install the chipset drivers now and then the audio and it usually works.  But if it doesn't you will have to do a complete reinstall again and do it in the correct order.  (1) Install Windows  (2) Install chipset drivers (3) Install device drivers such as the sound and video

I reinstalled the OS, ran the Intel Chipset Utility first, rebooted, then installed NIC, PCI modem, then SoundMax audio, and I have the same thing; one of the 'Multimedia Audio Controller' listed in Device Manager disappears after I installed the SoundMax drivers, but one still remains. What could it be?

Emeka:  Sounds to me like XP's detecting both the integrated audio on the motherboard (Soundmax), and the SB card, but you usually can't get both working at the same time - you have to choose one and disable/uninstall the other.

 

Check your BIOS settings and see if the integrated audio (under integrated devices) is turned on.  If it is, turn it off; XP should then only see 1 multimedia audio, which would be the SB card.

 

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim8300/sm/syssetup.htm

 

I went into the BIOS and turned off the audio under 'Integrated Devices'; The 'Multimedia Audio Controller' still showed in Device Manager though. I uninstalled it and then ran a scan for devices,  and Device Manager found it again. However, this time, I used the option to automatically install the device drivers and Windows apparently found the drivers and installed them; go figure. So now Device Manager is clean. The problem I have now is, no sound from the audio out jack that the speaker plugs into, but I can get sound when I plug a speaker or headphones into the headphone jack. ??!! That tells me that audio drivers are successfully installed, but something may be wrong with the SB card itself? Seems strange, because when I first got Device Manager looking like it was supposed to, I got sound out of the speaker jack/port; after rebooting I haven't been able to. I tried turning the Integrated audio device back on, no luck. Any ideas?