Sound Help

I cannot hear sound on my computer, even though i know a sound is playing. According to the Sounds and Audio Devices tab in Control Panel, my sound device is working fine. I have ran the troubleshooter, checked my speakers, eve reinstalled my drivers but nothing works. After i reinstall my driver, when the computer resets i hear the “Shutdown” sound, but when the computer restarts the Startup sound cuts off in the middle and the sound does not work after that. I started experiencing this after i received a “Remote Procedure Call” error(I posted about this earlier http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=202375 ). I ran windows update and fixed this problem, but started getting no sound after that. I have Windows XP with a SoundBlaster Augigy sound card.