trouble with ali5455 (not ali5451) sound

[set235]

using a 2.6.15r5 kernel
amd athlon64
asus k8u-x mother with built in ali 5455 sound
my kernel currently has alsa compiled in with the intel 8xo drivers as there is no ali5455. i have completely followed the gentoo alsa guide (a few times)
with alsa compiled in kernel and alsadrivers and seem to keep getting the same errors
alsaconf sees my card, however after selecting alsaconf ends with following message:
/usr/sbin/alsactl: save_state:1163: no sound cards found...
then it unloads alsa and alsa modules

alsamixer always returns :
alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such device

lspci shows:
00:04.0 Multimedia audio controller: ALi Corporation M5455 PCI AC-Link Controller Audio Device (rev 20)

lsmod does not show snd_ali5455, snd-ali5455, snd_intel8x0, or snd-intel8x0

not quite sure what to do....should i switch to a different kernel? or possibly use oss?
i'm sure i may have left out an important piece of info above, just let me know what and i'll post ...........thanks!
_________________
set235 aka seth
"whats this button do?"

[set235]

well, just as an additional note, i tried compiling kernel with oss (no alsa or alsa drivers) and still no luck....
_________________
set235 aka seth
"whats this button do?"