audio playback device HDA Intel (HDA Generic) does not work (lenovo T410i)

On KDE startup I get the notice "audio playback device HDA Intel (HDA Generic) does not work". Indeed sound doesn't work. If I go to System Settings | Multimedia and test the HDA Intel (HDA Generic) device it works fine -- and then sounds work again until I reboot.

I assumed at first this came from upgrading the kernel from 2.6.32-24 to -25, but booting back into the old kernel shows the audio is also broken there now. Something else in the upgrade perhaps broke this: my original install of Kubuntu worked fine, that's what I'd like to stress.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: phonon 4:4.6.2-0ubuntu5.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-25.45-generic 2.6.32.21+drm33.7
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-25-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Nov 12 09:07:14 2010
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 10.04.1 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100816.2)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: qt4-x11