well dude i had a pretty similar problem offlate like u have mine was Sis Chipset....

Well unfortunately onboard soundcard sometimes just goes bizarre and doesn't work.. i also believe that u might have heard a few click sounds that is it...

I assume that there are no sounds whatso ever in ur computer...
Except the click sounds and those few winamp sounds...

There is no problem as such with the connection ... i am also sure .. the simple old solution following (KISS) Keep it Simple and Safe.... go 4 a PCI slot sound card ...
i have gone for a crystal make which is dirt cheap ok ..

and i am sure this shud solve ur problem b'coz PCI behaves differently...

Well... I'm not gonna buy a soundcard if I got my 2jr guarantee (or how they call it in english )

However... I don't hear any sound, no beeps no 'clicks' as u call em. I only hear it when I plugin my headset's mic and shake a bit with it . So it's a bit different. If this really is the problem I'm gonna get myself a whole new motherboard...

EDIT: LOL! I found out my headset's earphone are used as microphone :\ WTF?

what OS is this? XP?

You could always try to check out the Audio Properties control panel. Make sure that the primary audio output device is set to use the Realtek chipset. I've seen situations where, for no reason at all, the device gets changed to (None) or something similar, and changing the device properly fixes it.

Same problem , I did what you said but no luck, so I bought a souncard and now no probs.

My friend said he already had such problems with the realtek chipset because it is so cheap that the MB 's builders wants to get the maximum profit so ----

I would agree with you. In this particular case, I'm thinking the sound jacks might be bad, or the chipset on the board went belly-up.

is your AC97 audio enable in your BIOS?

i had a similar problem, and bought a new sound card just to find out a few months later my AC97 was disable in the bios

Yes of course , everything was correct in the bios, I think that the problem is originating from the fact that I have not a "surround speakers" , in fact the software is looking for 5 "speakers"

My friend who is a very good electronician says that the Realtek is a "s...t" sometimes it works sometimes not . Please also note that we downloaded the latest drivers from them and also that the IRQ was always coupled to an USB device (impossible to change after a clean install ????)

My opinion is simple Realtek is proposing a chip at very low price so everybody buy it but it is not reliable.

Please note that I have a laptop withe the same chipset and it works (the sound is awful however)

You can download a program for the onboard sound card that you are talking about that lest you pick what each out put does from 2 speackers setup to 5.1 speacker setup.

My comp also use AC'97, the audio was working fine until one day it just goes mute. But I do hear the greeting sound when window starts. Other than that, I can hear nothing. Not even the click sound. Does it mean that the realtek chipset still functioning?