Use the Debian package sndconfig
to automatically identify
your audio chip and to add this information to
/etc/modutils/sndconfig. 
If the audio device is not supported then you will probably need to
get a newer kernel. Suppose you has an i810 audio chip (82801DB
AC'97). Get this information from the lspci command: 
  $ lspci
  ...
  00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB AC'97
  ...
 
 | 
The PCI ID here is 82801.  Look this up in
/usr/src/linux/drivers/sound/i810_audio.c and if it's there,
it should be supported.
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