Question : Problem: internal laptop sound card (soundmax) does not work. how do i fix it

i have nx6110 hp laptop and my sound card is not working. basically i have no sound whatsoever.
my sound card is standard SOUND MAX. i tried reinstalling drivers from HP website as well as later ones i found on the internet. if i remove sound card when i reboot it windows xp finds the sound card and installs it. looks like it should work but it does not.
this particular model does not have external volume control. volume can only be adjusted through windows. Nothing is muted.
i tried connected headphones as well as microphone to see if it can record at least (sound recorder shows a graph if it detects noise) without any luck.
so is the sound card completely dead? i do have latest BIOS if anyone needs to know.

also i was looking for some sort of sound card pcmcia and found audigy 2 zs but apparently you need to connect speakers to it. i though maybe somehow internal speakers would work.

Answer : Problem: internal laptop sound card (soundmax) does not work. how do i fix it

Download Knoppix and burn the image(.iso) to a cd using a program like Nero, boot to that cd. Play a CD or file with audio is it doest work here either then is most likely a bad soundcard.
Heres a link to download the .iso
http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/knoppix/KNOPPIX_V5.1.1CD-2007-01-04-EN.iso