Not the same hardware, Lona, but I had an identical problem with my sound card, after I foolishly downloaded an updated driver from the Windows Update site. After each reboot, I had the reinstall the driver.
The only cure I found was to remove the software in Control Panel > System, take the card out of its slot, restart the computer, shut it down again, put the card back, and then let Windows find it on startup and reinstall the original driver.
By the way, I like the new sig. That Acker Bilk music is very soothing, but I can't remember the title.