Hi,
The page at http://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Vendor-Intel makes it seem that cards identified as ICH7 must use the hda_intel driver. This is apparently not always true. I have a dell desktop where snd_hda_intel refuses to load. I fired up alsaconf and it suggested using the intel8x0. I tried that and it works fine.
So maybe ICH7 should be added to "chipsets" in the first row on that page.
Thanks,
- Paul Winkler
p.s. here's some system info:
pw@pw ~ $ lspci | grep audio 00:1e.2 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 01) pw@pw ~ $ cat /proc/asound/cards 0 [ICH7 ]: ICH4 - Intel ICH7 Intel ICH7 with AD1981B at irq 23 pw@pw ~ $ lsmod | grep snd snd_intel8x0 27176 0 snd_ac97_codec 90456 1 snd_intel8x0 ac97_bus 4224 1 snd_ac97_codec snd_pcm 60808 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec snd_timer 18440 1 snd_pcm snd 38192 4 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer snd_page_alloc 8976 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm