Windows 7: "No speakers or headphones are plugged in" (after ccc update)

Hey guys, I'm at the end of my tether here.
Pre note: I'm running my sound though the on board optical port & have never had any problems before. Also it's worth noting that I haven't updated my video or sound drivers for ~2 years. The graphics card is a Radeon 5570 btw.

I updated my ati video card driver software (catalyst control centre) which also installs the latest update for your video card. After doing so I got the above message BUT the sound on firefox worked & didn't work in skyrim or vlc. So I did the logical thing & updated my sound driver to the latest version (Realtek 2.70) & after that there's no sound coming from anything.

I've tried disabling the sound coming from the HDMI, making sure optical is set as default (it is), updating my chipset & I've also tried several older versions of the drivers to no avail. I went into the bios also and the options I get are to "Disable" or "Auto" beside the onboard audio, there's no enable option, could updating the bios help?



Is there any other info that could help? Also let me know if I've left anything out!

Thanks for reading.