Realtek is Silent on X370 Killer/ac

Hi everyone,
A few weeks ago, My rear jack seemed to go dead. SO I plugged the cable into the front headphone jack and all seemed well. Now, it is dead. I've gone through as many audio diagnostics as I can find. The Realtek in Devices says it is there and working. In fact, if I turn on music the meter jumps around like it is playing sound. But nothing.. checked speakers on another device. They are fine. Checked jacks on other speakers - crickets! It seems to be a motherboard getting sound from the chip to the jacks.. could that be? I'd rather jump out of a moving car than go through the RMA process. That is unless this kind of failure indicates something else will go wrong soon.