I've lost count of posts like yours and the makers are not limited to Ford, GM, Samsung, and all the rest that if you don't report the problem inside the warranty you often can't get a free repair.

But I missed where you tried to restore the machine to factory issued OS. If that fails I use some cheap USB sound card. Example at http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ZM-RSSC-PB-R&cat=SND and a few are cheaper than that!

You make a fine case for extending warranties.
Bob