HP DV9700 NO Sound Device AT ALL! Nor anywhere to be found.

I have a HP 9720us vista 32 and the sound device is now missing, as of 2weeks ago, and I can't install any of the drivers from Conexant/hp or anywhere else, as the drivers need a device to connect to. I really don't think the sound card is the problem, but it has gone incognito and not even in the registry. The audio endpoint builder is there but no audio. Funny thing happened a week or so ago, the Smart Audio speakers and mic came back for a day or two ( but still no sound) then they also went away again. I've tried every solution on line and none of them worked, I need some help and neither HP or Conexant is offering a solution and I see many many people are having this problem. Probably some %&$# in Microsoft update messed things up. If anyone can help in any way, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. I haven't even mentioned that my DVD is also now gone, but I got an external DVDCD because I was tired of messing with this GD computer, but I'm back at it now with a new problem!

Also if anyone can recommend an external USB sound card (that does not require an existing soundcard) and works with a 2.00 GZ processor that would be fine also. I bought a sound blaster but returned it as my 2.0 is not powerful enough to run it. I'm not even sure it would have fixed the problem.