So i tried to make Ubuntu linux (dapper) on a AX3S pro motherboard understand that it had a sound card.

I know that the alsa driver for i810 should be used. It has a motherboard based on the i815e chipset from Intel.
But I could as likely had tried to bang my head against the wall immediately instead of trying to get this to work.
The documentation on [www.alsa-project.org] of course did not help at all.

Generally, sound card setup that is not configured correctly on install is a bitch to install.
For example all non plug&play cards (ISA) is just a bitch in linux.
Ok, they are not recognized on windows either, but there at least you just identify your sound card and download the driver with a few clicks, instead of fiddling around in some cryptic files in /etc/modutils trying to bind the driver to a device in /dev.
And where is sndconfig in Ubuntu?!
I dont understand why some distros does not have that nice program in their repositories.
It's open source for the love of god, and a real help in these situations.