Home Theater PC setup woes; 3650 in XP through HDMI

So like the topic says I'm having trouble setting up a new PC that I built to connect to my HDTV. I specifically picked up a card with native HDMI out, namely the MSI 3650, and even though it's outputting a great picture to my TV, nothing I can do will make it output audio too. I've tried everything I can think of and read here and other places. I've made sure all the drives are up to date, tried downloading older ones, tried messing around in device manager, even have connected audio via an RCA>3.5mm adapter I had laying around to go off my Mobo's sound.

So, I finally give up on audio for the moment and decide to transfer a couple video files for testing those settings and making sure everything was setup right on that end. Imagine my shock when upon opening them nothing showed in the player window. How fun... So I go back to sound hoping that maybe the two are connected, and figuring that maybe I need an update codec or something... So, after more tinkering around, I was able to get the sound working, however in order to do that something totally screwed up in my video settings (maybe the driver I was using) and started saying that the video adapter couldn't be used, the catalyst control center wasn't compatible, and would only give me 4bit color and like 640x280 or something resolution... The good news is the drivers that worked before gave me a good picture back, but once again no sound.

It seems I'm stuck with either piss-poor picture and sound or no sound and good picture... So, I turn to you all for help and hope that maybe someone will have some idea (other then upgrade to vista) for me. Before I go crazy hopefully >_>