Test for bad audio on X58A_UD3R

[Samuel Chavles]

Hi, I have 2 identical machines. The specs are:
X58a UD3r FF Bios
i7 950 3.2 Ghz
24 GB Vengeance Ram
Nvidia GT 240

Now on one of them I just had returned from an RMA and now audio wont work at all. I kept thinking it was an install/driver issue on that machine so after 7 hours of trouble shooting and no luck, I took a crap shot and plugged my other machines hard drive into the one having issues and it booted into W7 just fine. No audio, even on a different OS. So my question is, is there a way to test if the Realtek ALC component is broken?

[wazza300]

no sound through speakers or front panel headphones?
did you check in the bios,onboard devices/sound that its set to hdaudio or ac97? set it to whatevers printed on the front panel audio mb connector block

right clicked the speaker icon/playback devices while playing music to see if any of the green bars dance up and down indicating sound should be heard?

also make sure azalia codec/onboard sound is enabled in bios,if it isnt no sound will be heard