That /etc/modprobe.d/sound contained only two lines. (after running alsaconf:) [root@localhost etc]# cat /etc/modprobe.d/sound alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel alias sound-slot-0 snd-hda-intel
My modprobe.conf manual page says it first checks for /etc/modprobe.conf and if that not exists, it'll read all files in /etc/modprobe.d/ similar to yum's repositories that can nowadays be spread over several files in /etc/yum.d/ I guess. I think the manual page is not 100% accurate, because I assume it'll check /etc/modprobe.d anyways, whether or not /etc/modprobe.conf exists. (it even tries to load my hda_intel module twice when I have it both in /etc/modprobe.conf and /etc/modprobe.d/sound)
Given your /etc/modprobe.conf, you could probably keep the /etc/modprobe.d/sound file if you comment the first line.
What did /etc/modprobe.conf look like after you installed the new kernel?
Also, you have a different version of alsa-driver than alsa-lib, alsa-utils (alsa-tools might also be useful). This could be causing problems.. you might try to "make uninstall" your 1.0.12rc1 driver and reinstall the 1.0.11 version. If the 1.0.12rc1 driver uninstall gets rid of alsasound and alsaconf you should copy them back if you don't get them with the 1.0.11 driver install.