THanks guys for all the replies. This going to be a bit long!
Got my board checked and the tech guy at the distributor said it is ok. I believed he might have flashed (the bios) the board straight away before booting up because I saw him copying files to a usb thumb drive while he enter the bios of the board and then connect to the comp.
When I fixed it up last night, it was working!
I did speak to the tech tech guy. Remarks was WinXP SP2 does not recognise HD audio from Realtek. Sugest to install windows audio driver UAA that comes with the Disc 1st then realtek drivers. The UAA drivers will prompt to install realtek driver(according to him, but I did not get that prompt.) during the installation process or to say HD audio detected and ask to install driver. He said to cancel the prompting to install another driver but to finish up the installation for UAA alone. Then install realtek drivers
He did say WinXP SP3 does not have this problem.
Maybe my taking out the board might have helped? I still think he could have flashed to a newer bios or something. Anyway am glad for his help and the board is working!
By the way the audio is really nice. Remembered Gigabyte used to have the HD audio with realtek as well and I do not have problem with those. This one definitely sounds clean and nicer. Maybe I have been deprived for a week of PC music!
May proceed to research on OCing my dual core 2.8 ghz
Cheers guys!