Ya a sound card either built into the motherboard or separate card isn't the way to go...what you want is either a USB or Firewire audio interface box...get one with a guitar instrument input and an XLR grade mic input as well and use something like that. There are inexpensive boxes at your local music center or online music stores for like $100-200 and they all come with recording software....plug it all in and have some fun...record your guitar and play it back and then record more tracks along with it....anything using the sound card doesn't work...and they sound like crap...
Some people spend $200 on sound cards...but getting a audio interface box with recording software is far superior and more fun...

I can second this. I struggled for weeks trying to get a decent setup going with both my computers existing sound inputs and the one on my sound card. You'll find you run into all sorts of issues with sound quality and recording out of sync.

I ended up going with an M-Audio Delta 44. The nice thing about this rig, is it interfaces with Pro-Tools right out of the box. Its a 1/4" 4 in/4 out box that interfaces with your computer using one of the PCI slots. This works a lot better, but I run into issues when recording 4 tracks simultaneously. For my current projects, this will do. But I plan on upgrading to a Firewire or USB2.0 Interface in the future.

David

PT LE is definitely not worth writing home about. I wouldn't make that my deciding factor in interfaces especially when dealing with very old technology of the Delta series. There are much much better options out there that are not in fact restrictive.