Onboard sound issue

Recently I replaced my HP case with a cooler, roomier Azza Solano 1000 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] ano%201000 - 2 things from my old setup did not get transferred however. One is a media card array, with support for the various forms of data storage beyond flash drives. The other is the front panel, which has 2 usb ports and 1 firewire along with 3 line in/mic/headphone jacks. Since my new case has the audio jacks and USB ports that I need on the front, I simply decided not to install the old front panel. The old panel connected to the motherboard via a yellow 9 pin adapter. The problems start when I switch to my new case and switch the old 9 pin adapter for Solano's, labeled "HD Audio" which extends to another labeled "AC'97". Upon bootup, I find that I have no sound period. Neither the front or back 3.5mm jacks nor the SPDIF output any sound. They aren't even detected in the Device Manager for that matter. Tinkering in the limited HP BIOS provides little help, reinstalling the Realtek drivers does no good, and restore points did nothing. It is worth mentioning that I have onboard sound by Realtek.

My build consists of:
AMD Athlon 64 x2 5000+ at 2.6 ghz
4gb PC-6400 ram
Nvidia GTX 260
1 360gb hard drive and 1 750gb hard drive
My Motherboard manufacturer's name: ECS MCP61PM-HM
My Motherboard manufacturer's name for HP/Compaq: Nettle2-GL8E
Specs here - http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc [...] 43&lang=en

I have spent two days on Google with no resolution...