hmmm, I must be doing something stupid then.

I have tried with two different hard drives. sata and ata.
I have tried two different CPUs

I have tried 2 ram sticks, one 256 and one 1gig, both pc3200, 400mhz.

from looking at this site;
Multimedia Audio Controller Problems - Page 13
I can see that someone has got it working with pc2700, so maybe this would do it.

otherwise, I have no idea!