Hi all I am getting extremely distorted sound from my onboard sound card.... and any music I play only comes through as a series of vague "thumps" amidst load hissing and crackling background noise. I have looked into changing the settings in ALSA, but no luck so far. Anyone care to help me? Many thanks. Oh yes, I seem to have two audio devices listed: one is onboard and the audio plugs are located at the back of the pc and the other is also onboard and the audio plugs are located at the front of the pc (there is a cable connecting it to the motherboard). The plugs at the front do not produce any sound whatsoever! Here is the output for: ~$ pactl list cards Card #0 Name: alsa_card.pci-0000_00_1b.0 Driver: module-alsa-card.c Owner Module: 5 Properties: alsa.card = "0" alsa.card_name = "HDA Intel" alsa.long_card_name = "HDA Intel at 0xfea38000 irq 41" alsa.driver_name = "snd_hda_intel" device.bus_path = "pci-0000:00:1b.0" sysfs.path = "/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0" device.bus = "pci" device.vendor.id = "8086" device.vendor.name = "Intel Corporation" device.product.id = "27d8" device.product.name = "NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio Controller" device.form_factor = "internal" device.string = "0" device.description = "Built-in Audio" module-udev-detect.discovered = "1" device.icon_name = "audio-card-pci" Profiles: input:analog-stereo: Analog Stereo Input (sinks: 0, sources: 1, priority. 60) output:analog-stereo: Analog Stereo Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority. 6000) output:analog-stereo+input:analog-stereo: Analog Stereo Duplex (sinks: 1, sources: 1, priority. 6060) output:analog-surround-40: Analog Surround 4.0 Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority. 700) output:analog-surround-40+input:analog-stereo: Analog Surround 4.0 Output + Analog Stereo Input (sinks: 1, sources: 1, priority. 760) output:analog-surround-41: Analog Surround 4.1 Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority. 800) output:analog-surround-41+input:analog-stereo: Analog Surround 4.1 Output + Analog Stereo Input (sinks: 1, sources: 1, priority. 860) output:analog-surround-50: Analog Surround 5.0 Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority. 700) output:analog-surround-50+input:analog-stereo: Analog Surround 5.0 Output + Analog Stereo Input (sinks: 1, sources: 1, priority. 760) output:analog-surround-51: Analog Surround 5.1 Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority. 800) output:analog-surround-51+input:analog-stereo: Analog Surround 5.1 Output + Analog Stereo Input (sinks: 1, sources: 1, priority. 860) output:iec958-stereo: Digital Stereo (IEC958) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority. 5500) output:iec958-stereo+input:analog-stereo: Digital Stereo (IEC958) Output + Analog Stereo Input (sinks: 1, sources: 1, priority. 5560) off: Off (sinks: 0, sources: 0, priority. 0) Active Profile: output:analog-stereo+input:analog-stereo Ports: analog-input: Analog Input (priority: 10000, latency offset: 0 usec) Part of profile(s): input:analog-stereo, output:analog-stereo+input:analog-stereo, output:analog-surround-40+input:analog-stereo, output:analog-surround-41+input:analog-stereo, output:analog-surround-50+input:analog-stereo, output:analog-surround-51+input:analog-stereo, output:iec958-stereo+input:analog-stereo analog-input-microphone: Microphone (priority: 8700, latency offset: 0 usec, not available) Properties: device.icon_name = "audio-input-microphone" Part of profile(s): input:analog-stereo, output:analog-stereo+input:analog-stereo, output:analog-surround-40+input:analog-stereo, output:analog-surround-41+input:analog-stereo, output:analog-surround-50+input:analog-stereo, output:analog-surround-51+input:analog-stereo, output:iec958-stereo+input:analog-stereo analog-output: Analog Output (priority: 9900, latency offset: 0 usec) Part of profile(s): output:analog-stereo, output:analog-stereo+input:analog-stereo, output:analog-surround-40, output:analog-surround-40+input:analog-stereo, output:analog-surround-41, output:analog-surround-41+input:analog-stereo, output:analog-surround-50, output:analog-surround-50+input:analog-stereo, output:analog-surround-51, output:analog-surround-51+input:analog-stereo iec958-stereo-output: Digital Output (S/PDIF) (priority: 0, latency offset: 0 usec) Part of profile(s): output:iec958-stereo, output:iec958-stereo+input:analog-stereo