sound not working on console only Wheezy laptop

[keitho@strucktower.com]

I am trying to get the sound working on a console only Wheezy laptop (all
current software updates).
I know the hardware works from (dual) booting to Windows XP.

I get no sound, not even system beeps. Initially I was getting an error on
bootup that said "Driver 'pcspkr' is already registered, aborting...",
but after investigating a bit decided to load alsa-base and that error
message no longer appears.

I used alsamixer to turn up the volume on all the channels, still no
sound. Running speaker-test gives no sound either.
I am currently only using mp3's to test with. When I try to play an mp3
file I get no  errors, just no sound.

I must be missing something... any ideas?

root@eve:~# lsmod|grep -i snd
snd_intel8x0           22382  0
snd_ac97_codec         84197  1 snd_intel8x0
ac97_bus               12462  1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm                53315  2 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec
snd_seq                39539  0
snd_timer              22027  2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device         12985  1 snd_seq
snd                    38562  6
snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
soundcore              12992  1 snd
snd_page_alloc         12899  2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm

root@eve:~# lsmod|grep -i pcsp
pcspkr                 12515  0

root@eve:~# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: I82801CAICH3 [Intel 82801CA-ICH3], device 0: Intel ICH [Intel
82801CA-ICH3]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

pertinent stanza  from lspci -v
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM AC'97
Audio Controller (rev 02)
        Subsystem: Cirrus Logic Crystal WMD Audio Codec
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 5
        I/O ports at d800 [size=256]
        I/O ports at dc80 [size=64]
        Kernel driver in use: Intel ICH