Hi I just got this machine from a neighbour and it has a sound issue. At first I didn't know that that Realtek AC soundonboard was disabled but soon discovered this when I got into the bios. What I am not sure of is wether one of the dvd drives should be connected to the motherboard as there is no sound. I did look at the sound issue in Linux(Alsa) but I think this is a hardware issue. There is no cable connecting the dvd drive and the motherboard but is there something that diables the sound on the motherboard? I am downloading the manual from the asus site now but I must admit I am not that good with manuals and have never seen this issue before. If it is just easier to put in a pci soundcard I can do that if that makes things easier. "The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

As long as the DVD drive(s) is connected to the motherboard via a ribbon cable, that's all that's necessary. Since the sound was disabled in the BIOS, did Linux detect it & install the drivers after it was enabled?

Oh Ok it is just that I have used other machines where there was a small cable that had to be connected. Maybe they are older machines. Oh yes when I ran Alsaconfig it recognised the Realtec ac sound thing and installed stuff. Sorry it all went to so fast. It was compleytely different to what didn't happened when I ran alsaconfig before enabling the sound in the bios. "The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

older PCs had a sound cable from CD drive to sound card/motherboard. I believe this was from the days when not all cd drives could do digital sound and when operating systems did not do digital sound. The cable was analogue sound connector. I recall that on windows 98 you needed that cable to hear an audio cd unless you went into windows somewhere and ticked a box to enable digital sound. Whereas XP did it automatically. I have no idea about linux and whether or not some versions are differnt from others with regard to digital sound. I think this only related to audio CD sound and did not affect other sound eg. in a game

Ah ok thanks for that info as I mainly use older machines. That is why I now use linux because you can happily use older machines. Well I think I will put in a pci sound card as I have a couple spare and see if that helps with linux seeing it. I used Ubuntu Linux before this and it does take a bit of tinkering but it works well. Now learning a whole new Linux version is another challenge. "The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

Which version of Linux are you working with? I've been experimenting with it on & off for a couple of years & have tried several different distros. My current favorite is Linux Mint which is based on Ubuntu. I'm running Mint 5 Xfce on my Linux test box. Mint 6 was just released within the past few weeks. Linux Mint, The Ubuntu That Should Have Been? http://linuxmint.com/

I am using DreamLinux and prior to that used Ubuntu for a year. I tried Debian at some point too. I haven't used the Distro your using. There are so many of them. I tried also Damn Small Linux, Dynebolic and UbuntuStudio. It's fun! Anyway the good news is I stuck in a pci soundcard and it works! It is a pretty simple one but at least it is something. I will put in a better one when I dig through my pci cards I have spare! "The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama