Onboard audio not working

I went through the whole ordeal of a fresh Windows installation, and ever since—nothing. Total silence from my PC.
Under my playback devices, all I see are two HDMI outputs, when what I actually need is the standard 3.5mm jack to get anything moving.
As far as I can tell, I’m running a Realtek sound card, and I've checked the BIOS to confirm it's actually enabled, but that hasn't helped much. I tried pulling drivers directly from the Realtek site, but no luck there either; to make matters worse, I can't even get the AC97 drivers to install properly.
Does anyone have any bright ideas?

Go into your sound properties and hit up the playback devices tab. Once you're in there, right-click and make sure you check the box to show all devices, including inactive ones. If your drivers actually installed correctly for once, you should see the analog port pop up. Just set that as your default and you're good to go.

I mentioned earlier that I don't see any playback devices listed—just two HDMI ports showing up. I managed to get all the other hardware to display, but those two HDMI options make absolutely no sense to me... especially since I only have one port available on my graphics card. It’s quite frustrating, really; there used to be an Intel connection right there, which has now completely vanished from the list.

Just unplug the speakers from the board and plug them back in. This happens to me all the time after an update when macOS decides HDMI is the default audio output... I just yank the cord and pop it back in, the driver realizes it's a jack connection, and boom—sound is back.

Take a look at what’s listed under "Sound, video & game controllers" in your Device Manager. If you don't see an Intel driver or whatever specific hardware came integrated with your motherboard, then you clearly haven't installed the necessary drivers yet.

Just finish up that macOS update all the way and then go ahead and reboot the machine...

I would suggest attempting a driver update for your audio hardware first... alternatively, you could simply pick up a USB external sound card; that usually resolves the issue immediately.

My apologies for the silence—I should have checked back in sooner once I actually sorted this mess out. The core of the issue was that I kept trying to force those Intel drivers onto the system, but every single time, I’d just get hit with an error claiming the hardware wasn't even detected... which is absurd, because I know for a fact it's Intel hardware.
In the end, I let CCleaner grab some VIA HD drivers for me, and wouldn't you know it? Everything finally started working. Even though the installer had "compatible" slapped in parentheses—which, let's be honest, is usually tech-speak for "we aren't quite sure if this will blow up your computer"—they seem to be doing the job for now. They probably aren't the most elegant solution, but they work, and at this point, isn't that all we can ask for?🙂
Thanks for the suggestions. 👍