Audio problems galore - drivers not installing

Last night, I'm watching the Colbert Report, and my computer starts rattling, so I lean in. Its the GPU. Third time with this card, the fan only lasts maybe 2 years tops. I turn it off, crack open the case, loosen the screws to give the fan more clearance, replace the card and the noise goes away. Actually, all noises went away. My computer could not detect any audio inputs!
I use headphones in the back and HDMI to a receiver, which both up until now worked perfectly. What's weird is that these channels are exclusive to the mobo and GPU, which means that this has to be a software problem or windows registry error. SO i reboot again. Now i have 8 driver problems, what the hell just happened?

ATI High definition Audio Device* (This device is occasionally listed as a AMD rather than ATI during re-detection post-uninstall)
High Definition Audio Device

So here's what I've tried...

System Restore - No change.

Safe mode Method 1: Boot Safe mode, uninstall drivers, install Realtek and ATI drivers for my Gateway FX6840 Mainboard and AMD Radeon HD 5770 GPU.
Method 2: Boot Safe, uninstall, wipe drivers with driver wiper, reboot into safe again, install downloaded drivers again.

No change.

Picture attached, please help, I'm normally pretty good, but this sounds like an upstream driver problem.