Fix HDA Intel (Realtek ALC887) No Sound Issue In Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat

I got a new computer at work, installed Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat and the sound didn't work. The fix was actually quite simple so I thought I'd share it with you in case you have a similar issue.

The computer has an HDA Intel chip (Realtek ALC887) and I couldn't open alsamixer (this error was displayed: "load hw:0 error: Invalid argument"), although the sound seemed to be working in various applications (no error there) except I couldn't hear anything.

The fix:

Edit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf:

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

And add the following line:

options snd-hda-intel model=generic

Save, reboot (a logout might be enough too) and the sound should work. If this generic fix doesn't work for you, see THIS post.