Soundblaster AWE 64: potato package update wrecked sound

[Berthold Cogel <cogel@rrz.uni-koeln.de>]

Hello!

I had a working sound configuration until last weekend with Debian 2.2,
Kernel 2.2.17 and Soundblaster AWE 64 Gold.  
Then I decided to update my system from potato-stable (about 32
packages/25 MB). Since the next reboot the module sb wants to use IRQ7
and sound isn't working anymore.
This happened before after I updated my system from Debian 2.1 to Debian
2.2. I did a lot of things like disabling the BIOS support for PNP
Operating Systems, building a kernel without sound, disabling isapnp,
deleting modules.conf. Just like a blind chicken looking for food :-(.
Somehow I managed to revive the sound. 
 
This time I updated only some packages. I didn't change the sound
configuration! 

base-config    0.32       ->  0.33.2         
base-passwd    3.1.7      ->  3.1.10         
debconf        0.2.80.16  ->  0.2.80.17      
dpkg           1.6.14     ->  1.6.15         
dpkg-dev       1.6.14     ->  1.6.15         
make           3.78.1-8   ->  3.79.1-1.potato 
makedev        2.3.1-44   ->  2.3.1-46.2     
modutils       2.3.11-8   ->  2.3.11-10      

Additionally I updated some XFree-3.3.6 Packages.

What the h... is going on. This is weird.
Now I`m looking for 'professional' help

Thanks in advance

Berthold Cogel