Tried all the other "sound not working" posts i think, lost count.

purge/reinstall alsa and pulse, reboot, add user to audio group, various lines in the alsa config file such as "options snd-hda-intel model=" then tried different options like generic, auto, basic, default, etc. tried pulseaudio -k && sudo alsa force-reload a few times, with and without rebooting.

Hardware: 16gb ram, core I7-4790, Intel Haswell mboard with onboard sound and graphics Multimedia: Audio Adapter: HDA-Intel-HDA Intel HDMI OS: Ubuntu server 14.04 with ubuntu-desktop installed.

GUI sound settings lists only the dummy sound card

alsamixer -c 0

¦ Card: HDA Intel HDMI                                 F1:  Help               ¦
¦ Chip: Intel Haswell HDMI                             F2:  System information ¦
¦ View: F3:[Playback] F4: Capture  F5: All             F6:  Select sound card  ¦
¦ Item: S/PDIF                                                                 ¦
¦                                     +--+                                     ¦
¦                                     ¦OO¦                                     ¦
¦                                     +--+                                     ¦
¦                                  < S/PDIF >                                  ¦

aplay -l

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

aplay -L

default
    Playback/recording through the PulseAudio sound server
null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
pulse
    PulseAudio Sound Server
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=0
    HDA Intel HDMI, HDMI 0
    HDMI Audio Output
dmix:CARD=HDMI,DEV=3
    HDA Intel HDMI, HDMI 0
    Direct sample mixing device
dsnoop:CARD=HDMI,DEV=3
    HDA Intel HDMI, HDMI 0
    Direct sample snooping device
hw:CARD=HDMI,DEV=3
    HDA Intel HDMI, HDMI 0
    Direct hardware device without any conversions
plughw:CARD=HDMI,DEV=3
    HDA Intel HDMI, HDMI 0
    Hardware device with all software conversions

cat /proc/asound/cards

 0 [HDMI           ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel HDMI
                      HDA Intel HDMI at 0xf7d14000 irq 46

cat /proc/asound/devices 1: : sequencer 2: [ 0- 3]: digital audio playback 3: [ 0- 0]: hardware dependent 4: [ 0] : control 33: : timer

mplayer -ao alsa:device=hdmi /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/system-ready.ogg

MPlayer 1.1-4.8 (C) 2000-2012 MPlayer Team
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.

Playing /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/system-ready.ogg.
libavformat version 54.20.4 (external)
Mismatching header version 54.20.3
libavformat file format detected.
[lavf] stream 0: audio (vorbis), -aid 0
Load subtitles in /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
libavcodec version 54.35.0 (external)
AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 1 ch, floatle, 80.0 kbit/5.67% (ratio: 10000->176400)
Selected audio codec: [ffvorbis] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg Vorbis)
==========================================================================
[AO_ALSA] alsa-lib: confmisc.c:768:(parse_card) cannot find card '1'
[AO_ALSA] alsa-lib: conf.c:4248:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_driver returned error: No such file or directory
[AO_ALSA] alsa-lib: confmisc.c:392:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
[AO_ALSA] alsa-lib: conf.c:4248:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such file or directory
[AO_ALSA] alsa-lib: confmisc.c:1251:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
[AO_ALSA] alsa-lib: conf.c:4248:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory
[AO_ALSA] alsa-lib: conf.c:4727:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such file or directory
[AO_ALSA] alsa-lib: pcm.c:2239:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM hdmi
[AO_ALSA] Playback open error: No such file or directory
Failed to initialize audio driver 'alsa:device=hdmi'
Could not open/initialize audio device -> no sound.
Audio: no sound
Video: no video

Exiting... (End of file)

mplayer -ao alsa:device=hw=0.3 /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/system-ready.ogg

MPlayer 1.1-4.8 (C) 2000-2012 MPlayer Team
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.

Playing /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/system-ready.ogg.
libavformat version 54.20.4 (external)
Mismatching header version 54.20.3
libavformat file format detected.
[lavf] stream 0: audio (vorbis), -aid 0
Load subtitles in /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
libavcodec version 54.35.0 (external)
AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 1 ch, floatle, 80.0 kbit/5.67% (ratio: 10000->176400)
Selected audio codec: [ffvorbis] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg Vorbis)
==========================================================================
[AO_ALSA] Format floatle is not supported by hardware, trying default.
AO: [alsa] 44100Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
Video: no video
Starting playback...
A:   0.4 (00.4) of 0.8 (00.7)  0.1% 

Exiting... (End of file)

Thank you for your time and help :)