diff --git a/Documentation/sound/alsa/HD-Audio.txt b/Documentation/sound/alsa/HD-Audio.txt
index 850b1b3956aeb8feaa6ecb55f8e4da583461e931..caa3ec655eac3dfe64715509223f5071821bb4cc 100644
--- a/Documentation/sound/alsa/HD-Audio.txt
+++ b/Documentation/sound/alsa/HD-Audio.txt
@@ -447,7 +447,10 @@ The file needs to have a line `[codec]`.  The next line should contain
 three numbers indicating the codec vendor-id (0x12345678 in the
 example), the codec subsystem-id (0xabcd1234) and the address (2) of
 the codec.  The rest patch entries are applied to this specified codec
-until another codec entry is given.
+until another codec entry is given.  Passing 0 or a negative number to
+the first or the second value will make the check of the corresponding
+field be skipped.  It'll be useful for really broken devices that don't
+initialize SSID properly.
 
 The `[model]` line allows to change the model name of the each codec.
 In the example above, it will be changed to model=auto.
diff --git a/sound/pci/hda/hda_hwdep.c b/sound/pci/hda/hda_hwdep.c
index bf3ced51e0f8440ba11b6910311dfcd269d416bc..72e5885007ccfa39887389f644bd06fa1c77bcd2 100644
--- a/sound/pci/hda/hda_hwdep.c
+++ b/sound/pci/hda/hda_hwdep.c
@@ -643,14 +643,14 @@ static inline int strmatch(const char *a, const char *b)
 static void parse_codec_mode(char *buf, struct hda_bus *bus,
 			     struct hda_codec **codecp)
 {
-	unsigned int vendorid, subid, caddr;
+	int vendorid, subid, caddr;
 	struct hda_codec *codec;
 
 	*codecp = NULL;
 	if (sscanf(buf, "%i %i %i", &vendorid, &subid, &caddr) == 3) {
 		list_for_each_entry(codec, &bus->codec_list, list) {
-			if (codec->vendor_id == vendorid &&
-			    codec->subsystem_id == subid &&
+			if ((vendorid <= 0 || codec->vendor_id == vendorid) &&
+			    (subid <= 0 || codec->subsystem_id == subid) &&
 			    codec->addr == caddr) {
 				*codecp = codec;
 				break;