I set up my knoppmyth box as a jukebox/game station/internet radio machine. It doesn't do TV or recordings and I don't plan on having it do that.

Specs of comp:
750 mhz Athlon with 256 MB ram, unknown motherboard (someone gave it to me)
GeForce FX 5200 (this: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6814130210 )
Currently using onboard sound, but also have a chaintek AV710 on which i would like to use the s/pdif out but am unable to find out how at all.
Knoppmyth distro: R5F1

Let me preface this with the fact that I know nothing about linux except for how to log in as a superuser and run nano. I do not understand even the basics like how to move files around and put them into folders and I find the desktop environment for KM to be absolutely impossible to use. So, if the fix for this requires downloading anything or moving anything anywhere or even running anything, I have no idea how to do that, so don't be worried about offending me by assuming that I know nothing (I don't)

Anyway, my problem is this: I've been using the onboard sound on this computer even though it is crap because I cannot make my Chaintech AV710 function inside of linux at all. When I start up my computer it makes a loud "beep" which I can hear through my speakers, through my receiver (not the PC speaker, I took it out). So, at the very least, I know that my onboard sound is not busted. But whenever I get into KM it will NOT play sound at all, completely randomly. I've gotten it to play sound one time in about 15 reboots. I have changed no settings or done anything differently before this change occurred. If it will output the beep on my comps startup, why does it no longer output sound in KM?

As mentioned before, I have a Chaintech AV710. I got it because of the good reviews everywhere and its computability with Knoppmyth but I cannot get it to work at all. The sound card is fully functioning in another windows computer. How do I make it work in KM? Id love to use the s/pdif to get good quality sound out to my system, but I can't figure out how.

Thanks!

Personally, I would pull the Chaintech for now. Multiple sound cards at your skill level is probably not a great idea (yet)

After pulling the Chaintech, login as root, run alsamixer and make sure your volume levels are up to ~90. You can do this while playing an mp3/video/whatever so you know which control adjusts the volume. Once you have it at a comfortable level, hit Esc and then run alsactl store.

If you get any errors be sure to post them.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that at the bottom of each control in alsamixer you will see either MM or a number - MM stands for Mute, to un-mute hit M, up and down arrows adjust volume. And you may find this page useful now and in the future: http://knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=LinuxTips /EDIT

Not to contradict, but I've always found my av710 to be easier to deal with than onboard sound. I currently use one to provide spdif over optical to my receiver and it works flawlessly even with DD and DTS tracks. The only setting I had to change after a clean install was to set the audio out to adsp in the audio page of settings->general.

I would personally recommend disabling your onboard audio in the bios, and then rebooting and runing alsamixer to make sure alsa is only seeing the av710. While you're in there double check that the IEC958 output is unmuted. That's all I recall havening to do to get mine working.