my HP vl6 series 7 dekstop keeps asking for pci audio card drivers.

Dear people,
i have just purchased a PII-233 HP Vectra VL6 series 7 dekstop pc. For some of us living in Africa this is a step way up from my Fujitsu Ergo pro E452 p1's i was using.
I have tried and re-tried to instal a sound card into the machine. I am running windows 98 SE.
it boots up, asks for sound card drivers, i install them and it works just fine.I boot up a bit later after switching off the machine and it asks for the same drivers again by saying windows has found new hardware.

I am surprised because the cmos settings are still there so it can't be that the cmos battery is dead and cannot remember that it has a sound card installed.
I also tried to set the cmos setup to say i am using a pnp operating system and then tried to install the drivers but it keeps forgetting the drivers( so as to speak) out of the blue.
Have any of you come across the same problem? could it be a faulty sound card>? i am getting really frustrated as it keeps giving me error messages after working well for 4-5 boot ups out of the blue.

By the way i have installed an Intex PCI sound card using a crystal 4624 chipset.it is soundblaster compatible and has a joystick port as well.

I thank you in advance for any help that you can offer.
regards
Vishal