[hotani]

Sound out on my machine just went completely dead, so I thought I'd look for a 3rd party sound card rather than replace the motherboard, which seems to run about $500 - holy crap.

What are the options? Cheapest card I've seen so far was $86!! I don't need professional level, just something that works.

And search is fried, so i'll go ahead and apologize in advance if this is a repost.

[SWFan]

I have some bad news for you (and anyone can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), but I don't think anyone makes PCI sound cards compatible with Macs + OS X other than M-Audio, who makes the Revolution 5.1 & 7.1 cards, which are NOT $20 or less. Otherwise, the only other options are external Firewire and/or USB audio devices, which those too tend to be over $20.

[hotani]

yeah, i've been finding that out in my searching. But still... i guess $75 for a stupid audio card is better than the $500 or so it would be to buy a new motherboard. fawk.

[lenox]

it'll sound better too. i love my 1010lt!

p.s. I have the same machine as yourself.

[waffffffle]

You can get a USB sound adapter on the cheap. The iMic, which is stereo, is about $40 and I've seen some 5.1 adapters for $20 at times.