Ok guys, I can jump in here with some strange issues and I have one of these snd-hda-intel devices ;-)
"/usr/local/etc/init.d/alsasound start" stops working with tc upgraded from 3.7.1 to 3.8.1. The reason is that "lspci -k" returns "Kernel modules" in 3.7.1 but not in 3.8.1 any longer, like
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel
Kernel modules: r8169
I don't know exactly why, lspci comes from pci-utils, unrelated to base but it's maybe related to our busybox update?