ALSA problem on ASUS M6N

[Ivan Glushkov <Ivan.Glushkov@desy.de>]

Hi list,
I was running happily my ALSA untill this morning... The strangiest 
think is that everything looks ok, my sound card is recognized, and running:

%dmesg | grep intel                      
intel8x0_measure_ac97_clock: measured 49569 usecs
intel8x0: clocking to 48000

the xmms is running happily, the Volume Control applet is claiming to 
put up and down the volume, but.... there is no sound at all! Nothing is 
coming out niether from xmms, nor from mplayer. I hear a small squeak 
when I rapidly put the volume from min to max on the volume control.

Any idea?

And since I have started asking... Every time when I boot my machine the 
esd is started. I have to kill it to be able to use my ALSA. How can I 
prevent the esd from starting at boot up?

Thanks a lot,
Ivan