Comment 26 for bug 557421

Seconded - same issue for me, inconsistent detection of sound card.
AMD64, Realtek ALC883 card, Ubuntu 10.04 upgraded thru Update Manager yesterday.

Also, not sure if this is relevant but I can predict when there will be problems as the volume mixer fails to appear in the Panel on boot..... killall pulseaudio and then alsa force-reload works every time.

The only thing I've changed from the auto updates in the upgrade was
- remove "wins" from nsswitch.conf, as a fix to Rhythmbox crashing on launch; and
- sudo ln -s compiz compiz.real which was a fix to all windows/apps having no display style or borders on boot

Everything else is straight "out of the box" from update manager