"Not connected" gameport problem...

[cdfreelancer]

I've just been out and purchased 'pacific fighters' for my PC and I got it home only to discover that my joystick doesn't work.

I had a look in the game controllers manager and it says that the status of the joystick is 'not connected'.

I have made sure that the joystick is plugged into the port (I think it's a game port, not a USB - It has a number of pins) and I've just downloaded and installed the latest driver. In fact I've been through the troubleshooter and it was unable to resole the problem.

Just for reference, the joystick is a genius maxfighter F-31D.

I decided to try the port with my gamepad which is a sidewinder pro but I get exactly the same problem.

Someone please help because I'm itching to play this new game!

 

[cdfreelancer]

Just for an update; I went to the device manager and uninstalled the standard gameport device. I then clicked refresh and windows couldn't redetect the gameport.
Could this mean a fault with my soundcard perhaps?

 

[cdfreelancer]

OK I've managed to reinstall the standard game port but am having the same problem.

I inserted the sidewinder pro into the port, started my PC and straight away it said that new hardware has been detected and it's searching for drivers etc. However, once it's all done, it says 'not connected' in the game device manager.

I don't know what the problem could be. All I can think of is that it was working OK until I updated my BIOS.

 

[cdfreelancer]