Realtek Audio Issues

Yesterday I installed Windows 7 Build 7264 32 bit. everything was working right I installed everything and it was all ok and was listing to music in itunes perfectly. I restarted the computer and the sound was gone. First I tried reinstalling the realtek drivers, but the install no longer worked its would freeze up. Then when I checked in device manager I had an error that said there was something wrong with the drivers so I tried uninstalling it from the device manager. The device manager crashed. I tried doing this in safe mode also. Finally I had no choice but to reinstall windows 7 and again it is working flawlessly.

Im having a new problem though. My speakers are connected through my mobos optic port to a 5.1 sound system. When I try to raise and lower volume on the taskbar it has no effect so i went to sound in control pannel and switched playback device from speakers to realtek digital out. when I do this the system sounds no longer work and i get a weird very tiny poping noise every so often but music and all other sounds but system sounds still work. I have the Realtek AC97 drivers installed, is this the correct one?

My Specs are:
Amd Athlon 3800+ X2
Asus A8N SLI
1 gig DDR400 corsair memory
Nvidia 6600

I got the same problem on my ASUS F3Tc notebook. After clean install (tried both x64 and x32 i got sound working... but after some reboots the audio card (azalia / realtek) simlpy disappears from system and the only way to get it back is complete reinstal... i tried all drivers from Realtek, ASUS and have done like 10 clean installation ... now Im starting to be desperate :-( Some Help would be great

I am using 7100RC, lately I have been getting a garbled sound from my Laptop Speakers, it is fine in head phones and sometimes its ok in the speakers, but I cant tell what could wrong if its a driver issue, or just hardware(speakers) how would I tell if it is driver related??
It was fine until I updated to wmp11 and winamp I uninstalled win amp but no change, can some one shed some light on my issue or at least some advice!!
thanx it is getting Aggravating