Dead Sound Card

After presenting my final project, i lost my sound card, because it didn't work anymore. Finally, i removed it from my motherboard and changed it to onboard sound card with AC97 Audio. Luckily, my Mandrakelinux and Windows can detect them automatically, even though i have to install a spesific driver from my motherboard's CD. Right now, i'm quite used to onboard sound card, which produces a nice sound, but not as real as the real sound card, which is designed for spesific purposes and also uses true hardware, not just codec.