Motherboard audio broken?

[Georg Grech]

Hi, recently my headphones started to malfunction, with the only sound coming from them a high pitched ring accompanied by crackling noises. The mic is also nonfunctional. The headphones themselves work fine, and this happens with any headphones I try. This happens with both the front and back jacks. I've disabled, enabled and reinstalled several drivers to the same end. The HDMI audio works, so i can use the speakers on my monitor.

 

From what I can tell, this started happening after I had to remove a malfunctioning GPU from my PC, so I'm thinking I might have accidentally damaged something doing so.

 

Is there anything I can try right now to fix this? If not, do i require a new sound card and will a cheap one suffice since?

Thanks