trouble getting audio to work

["Daniel C. Simkins Jr." <dsimkins@qwest.net>]

Hello.

System: ASUS A7M266-D dual Athlon MOBO with onboard C-Media 8738 audio chip.

OS: Debian Woody kernel 2.4.18 built by me.

Problem: I cannot get any sound. I verified that the kernel I built
has sound support built in, and driver for the 8738. I checked
/proc/pci to make sure the chip is detected. All fine so far. If I try
to send a raw sound file to /dev/audio or /dev/dsp using sox, I get a
"No such device" error. Similarly if I use mplayer, etc. It does not
matter if I am running as root or as a generic user, the results are
the same. I have exhausted my abilities, as well as what I could find
on the net. Any suggestions on how to figure out what is going on?

thanks,

dan

Lots of details:

All sound related flags to kernel build:
CONFIG_SOUND=y
# CONFIG_SOUND_BT878 is not set
CONFIG_SOUND_CMPCI=y
# CONFIG_SOUND_CMPCI_FM is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_CMPCI_MIDI is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_CMPCI_JOYSTICK is not set
CONFIG_SOUND_CMPCI_CM8738=y
CONFIG_SOUND_CMPCI_SPDIFINVERSE=y
CONFIG_SOUND_CMPCI_SPDIFLOOP=y
CONFIG_SOUND_CMPCI_SPEAKERS=6
# CONFIG_SOUND_CMPCI_LINE_REAR is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_CMPCI_LINE_BASS is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_EMU10K1 is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_FUSION is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_CS4281 is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_ES1370 is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_ES1371 is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_ESSSOLO1 is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_MAESTRO is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_MAESTRO3 is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_ICH is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_RME96XX is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_SONICVIBES is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_TRIDENT is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_MSNDCLAS is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_MSNDPIN is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_VIA82CXXX is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_OSS is not set
# CONFIG_SOUND_TVMIXER is not set

========================================================
Contents of /proc/pci

PCI devices found:
  Bus  0, device   0, function  0:
    Host bridge: PCI device 1022:700c (Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]) (rev 17).
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.  
      Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xf8000000 [0xfbffffff].
      Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xf7800000 [0xf7800fff].
      I/O at 0xe800 [0xe803].
  Bus  0, device   1, function  0:
    PCI bridge: PCI device 1022:700d (Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]) (rev 0).
      Master Capable.  No bursts.  Min Gnt=8.
  Bus  0, device   7, function  0:
    ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-768 [??] ISA (rev 4).
  Bus  0, device   7, function  1:
    IDE interface: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-768 [??] IDE (rev 4).
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.  
      I/O at 0xb800 [0xb80f].
  Bus  0, device   7, function  3:
    Bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-768 [??] ACPI (rev 3).
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.  
  Bus  0, device  16, function  0:
    PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-768 [??] PCI (rev 4).
      Master Capable.  No bursts.  Min Gnt=4.
  Bus  1, device   5, function  0:
    VGA compatible controller: PCI device 1002:514c (ATI Technologies Inc) (rev 0).
      IRQ 11.
      Master Capable.  Latency=64.  Min Gnt=8.
      Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe8000000 [0xefffffff].
      I/O at 0xd800 [0xd8ff].
      Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe7000000 [0xe700ffff].
  Bus  2, device   4, function  0:
    Multimedia audio controller: C-Media Electronics Inc CM8738 (rev 16).
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.  Min Gnt=2.Max Lat=24.
      I/O at 0xa800 [0xa8ff].
  Bus  2, device   5, function  0:
    Ethernet controller: National Semiconductor Corporation DP83815 (MacPhyter) Ethernet Controller (rev 0).
      IRQ 5.
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.  Min Gnt=11.Max Lat=52.
      I/O at 0xa400 [0xa4ff].
      Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe6000000 [0xe6000fff].
  Bus  2, device   6, function  0:
    USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 65).
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.  Min Gnt=1.Max Lat=42.
      Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe5800000 [0xe5800fff].
  Bus  2, device   6, function  1:
    USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (#2) (rev 65).
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.  Min Gnt=1.Max Lat=42.
      Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe5000000 [0xe5000fff].
  Bus  2, device   6, function  2:
    USB Controller: PCI device 1033:00e0 (NEC Corporation) (rev 2).
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.  Min Gnt=16.Max Lat=34.
      Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe4800000 [0xe48000ff].
========================================================================

Permissions on /dev/dsp and /dev/ audio

$ ls -al /dev/dsp /dev/audio
crw-rw-rw-    1 root     audio     14,   4 Jun 13  2001 /dev/audio
crw-rw-rw-    1 root     audio     14,   3 Jun 13  2001 /dev/dsp