You've done some great trouble shooting, to me, I would say it is the motherboard. not so much the graphics, on-board graphics, despite what you where told are not as good as a dedicated Graphics card. You set a huge chunk of RAM for it but it won't negate the fact that integrated graphics are not for gamers. Suprised you had as bad a problem as you did, but it's not suitable for hardcore gaming. As far as sound this may sound extreme but just uninstalling the old sound drivers may not erase all traces of the drivers. This is not a sure bet so just understand this may or may not help. I would format the harddrive, after I had disable the sound card in the bios, then reinstall windows, do the motherboard drivers first (via 4-in-1, or whatever chipset drivers are appropriate for your motherboard) with the sound card disable it should not ever ask or mention that soundcard during the install, I would have the sound blaster in during the reinstall however so windows will see it, it may not ask for drivers in the begining but by the end of the reinstall of windows it should show up in the device manager at a minimum, though it will be with a question mark or exclamation point until the drivers are installed. Some motherboards will just not release the duties of the on-board sound to another card however and people end up with issues like you have. As far a the majical "Plug and Play" jumper I am afraid no such thing exists, this has lead to the phrase "Plug and Pray" which many have found much more accurate. Like I said I know it's an extreme solution and by no means is it sure fire, but I'm sure a large hammer would bring much satisifation, it won't fix the computer but it'll make you feel better. I'll do some lookin' around and see if I can find any other solutions.