Sound used to work, now it doesn't

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

Asus EeePC 1000E, F12, KDE 4.3.

I had sound configured and working. Now, without me changing anything
I'm aware of, it doesn't. System Settings shows the same info as before
(PA as first choice), Kmix has all the sliders at full and is not muted,
but even the Test button doesn't produce any sound, even when selecting
the Intel hardware directly.

The only backend I have is Xine, though I seem to remember that
Gstreamer is now preferred. I installed everything gstreamer-related I
could find, including all the plugins, and I still only get offered
Xine. What else can I do?

poc