I fixed my issue although I'm not really sure which part that fixed it. I reinstalled the drivers for the onboard sound chip using drives provided on asus.com, then I noticed a setting in the drivers that said independent front audio and disabled it.
I am using a Seasonic M12-500 PSU with a E6600 at stock. Not really into the overclocking scene. shrug
update: still cant get the front panel audio jacks to work. I've copied the diagram described in the earlier response.
Everything seems fine and dandy now (though the system is quite noisy). I played a bit of WoW and it doesn't seem to stress the system at all. One thing I still can't get the front panel audio jacks to play sound. Is there a setting in the controll panel to enable them?
I recently built my first SFF using the setup in the title plus a NT-06 cooler. When I check my cpu temp in the bios is reads 50C. I would appreciate any advice on lowering that to a more acceptable level. I have the case open right now with 3 80mm fans installed. I'm going to try turning...
Does anyone notice this grounding wire coming out of the wire bundle for the front panel firewire port? what am i suppose to do with this. its not in the manual and the wire is really short to connect to anything.