I installed the 1.5V Snapshot kernel, and typing audioctl -a shows my gain is 
set to 127 and that it DID detect the AC97 chipset properly. However, 
whenever anything tries to play sound, it doesn't give any errors, acts like 
it's playing the sound, but nothing comes out of the speakers. (Yes, the 
speakers are on, plugged in, and the volume is up. :) )

-- Deven