I installed SuSE 10.0 final from scratch on my ASUS S5600 Notebook and initially sound worked without a problem. I installed some online updates, suddenly sound stopped working and the mixer would only show some odd controls (3D), no volume control.

Sound does still work with 9.3.

I installed again SuSE 10.0 final from scratch, now did the online update before detecting hardware. Result: No soundcard found by Yast.

Yast's sound module, however, claims that I have 2 soundards, one, Card Model "Sound Card" running with snd-intel8x0, the other "not configured" "82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller". It is not possible to delete any of these cards (Yast just ignores my request to delete them), when I "edit" the first card, the yast module crashes, when I edit the second card I get "An error occurred during the installation of 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller The kernel module snd-intel8x0 for sound support could not be loaded..."

In /etc/sysconfig/hardware there is a file hwcfg-bus-pci-00:1f.5 with content
MODULE='snd-intel8x0' STARTMODE='auto'

Alsaconfig 

22: PCI 1f.5: 0401 Multimedia audio controller                  
  [Created at pci.277]
  UDI: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_8086_24c5
  Unique ID: W60f.9fPM0PO+u+4
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.5
  SysFS BusID: 0000:00:1f.5
  Hardware Class: sound
  Model: "ASUSTeK 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller"
  Vendor: pci 0x8086 "Intel Corporation"
  Device: pci 0x24c5 "82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller"
  SubVendor: pci 0x1043 "ASUSTeK Computer Inc."
  SubDevice: pci 0x1803 
  Revision: 0x03
  I/O Ports: 0xe000-0xe0ff (rw)
  I/O Ports: 0xe100-0xe13f (rw)
  Memory Range: 0x1f800400-0x1f8005ff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  Memory Range: 0x1f800600-0x1f8006ff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  IRQ: 7 (24712 events)
  Module Alias: "pci:v00008086d000024C5sv00001043sd00001803bc04sc01i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: i810_audio is not active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe i810_audio"
  Driver Info #1:
    Driver Status: snd_intel8x0 is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe snd_intel8x0"
  Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown