Somebody in the thread at some point said:

Hi -

>> selected acer.  Currently I forced it anyway in /etc/modprobe.conf to 
>> acer as part of running around trying everything I could imagine.
> 
> I guess the correct model is rather acer-aspire.  Try it instead.

I did try this, it did change the alsamixer stuff a bit and made more 
complaints in dmesg, but didn't change the silence situation.

ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_intel.c:1810: chipset global capabilities = 0x4401
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_intel.c:749: codec_mask = 0x3
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:2211: hda_codec: model 'acer-aspire' is 
selected
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:1073: Cannot find slave Surround Playback 
Volume, skipped
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:1073: Cannot find slave Center Playback 
Volume, skipped
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:1073: Cannot find slave LFE Playback 
Volume, skipped
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:1073: Cannot find slave Side Playback 
Volume, skipped
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:1073: Cannot find slave Headphone 
Playback Volume, skipped
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:1073: Cannot find slave Speaker Playback 
Volume, skipped
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:1073: Cannot find slave Mono Playback 
Volume, skipped
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:1073: Cannot find slave Line-Out Playback 
Volume, skipped
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:1073: Cannot find slave Surround Playback 
Switch, skipped
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:1073: Cannot find slave Center Playback 
Switch, skipped
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:1073: Cannot find slave LFE Playback 
Switch, skipped
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:1073: Cannot find slave Side Playback 
Switch, skipped
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:1073: Cannot find slave Speaker Playback 
Switch, skipped
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:1073: Cannot find slave Mono Playback 
Switch, skipped

>> http://pastebin.ca/992253
> 
> The setting looks OK otherwise.
> BTW, it'd be better to show the contents in the post at the next
> time.

Thanks, I took this advice.

-Andy