Ok, well I have done even more troubleshooting and found out this much, it's not a kernel problem like I thought it was before. I recreated the problem by installing the alsa-driver-1.0.13 package with the 2.6.17.13 kernel and it happened, no PCM control (keeping in mind that I have PCM with the stock kernel alsa driver) the only difference is that the 2.6.17.13 uses alsa-driver-1.0.12rc1 driver. So what I did what I removed all instances of alsa and recompiled the kernel and downloaded and installed alsa-driver-1.0.11 driver and success I had PCM and everything was find. So I guess I would have to say that the problem surfaces at least on my system in alsa-driver-1.0.12rc1 or higher. I'm going to look around some more but have not found anyone else with this problem, could it possibly be a udev problem maybe? I dont know. But kernel 2.6.19 and higher use alsa-driver-1.0.13 and you can't compile anything lower than 1.0.14rc1 because the older versions of alsa-driver aren't supported with never kernels, oh well the hunt continues...

Why do you create a new thread ? Why don't you just add a post to your initial thread ? It will make it easier for anybody to know about your issue.

I forgot that it "bumps" it to the top when you reply, I don't do the forums much, just starting to get back into them, will do next time.