my sound died

I was playing a game (quake live) when my sound started to crackle so I quit.

I opened up winamp and tried to play an mp3 to see if it was the game or my computer and there was no sound at all. Darn.

So here's what I tried:
1. reboot. still no sound, and now have a little speaker icon in my taskbar with a red X that says "no audio output device is installed"
2. reinstall audio drivers from motherboard disc, then reboot. no change.
3. checked device manager and see there is no sound controller even listed. I use the add new hardware tool to install one, then install the drivers again. now it's listed but with a yellow exclamation sign. This device cannot start. (Code 10)
4. reinstalled the device with add new hardware like in the step above, but with newly downloaded drivers instead of the ones from the CD. still nothing.

I have checked my BIOS to see if the onboard sound was still enabled, and it is.

and now I'm out of ideas.

my motherboard is EVGA Nforce 780i
I'm running vista 64 home premium sp1

Well, sounds like you've tried everything I would. The only other thing I can really think of is finding a driver cleaner to clean the driver and try re-installing again. Otherwise it sounds like yer sound, as you put it, has died.

Perhaps getting a cheap Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS card would be the way to go in your case?