I once couldn't make sound work on a laptop, so I tried all the obvious tricks - check if the mixer isn't accidentally set to zero etc. But when all failed, I decided to download the latest nightly build of ALSA, recompile it, and guess what - it solved the problem. I still don't know what it was...
I have similar stories with GPU support and power management, and I think I'm not alone. But we're getting into too much detail...
If you were using debian or ubuntu, they removed the firmware from ALSA for legal reasons. Ugh, I know; it would be nice if they warned someone. See https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/26294 or http://forum.soft32.com/linux2/Bug-434592-alsa-firmware-load...
However, I wouldn't expect anyone else to figure out which package to add either. But for you and I, this is at least a step up from recompiling.
However, unless you are a kernel developer, if you are recompiling the kernel or sound drivers, you are working against the system and making life harder on yourself.
There's a small glitch in newer versions of X.org that (until recently) didn't allow proper dual-screens on Radeon cards. I didn't remove the debian package, download the newest X.org CVS, and compile my own version. I just reverted the package and pinned it until I felt like upgrading it. Hell, there wasn't any reason to upgrade in the first place, so that was the first mistake.
If you ever have to compile something you are either not using a modern distro (Debian, Ubuntu, and, I presume, Fedora) or are using the same techniques that were required in the 1990s but are just bad habits today (I learned this the hard way).