is there a way to probe a sound card's settings to see if it broken

[Walter Tautz <wtautz@math.uwaterloo.ca>]

I have recently suffered a mysterious failure in my sound
card that was working perfectly (es1371) and the modules
are still being loaded and I am in the audio group and
the permissions are writable etc and YET the damn thing
does not work...I should point out i am doing this with
a head set and not a amplified speaker system. mpeg123 claims
it is playing the files. I did test the headset on my radio..and
they work. Maybe pulling the sound card out and putting it in
again (possibly into another slot would work)...


ARe there any tools that can probe the card to see whether certain
settings have somehow been turned off??? How does a sound card actually
work... 

-walter 

ps. Annoyed that sound doesn't work.... Any references would be 
appreciated.