ALSA problems with VIA8233

["Ivan Nestlerode" <p536vhx02@sneakemail.com>]

I'm having some strange problems with my sound. I am using a VIA8233 card and the ALSA from my 2.6.7 kernel. Most of the time I am also using KDE.

If instead of using KDE immediately after boot, I log into one of the text consoles, sound does not work properly. I must turn my speaker up all the way to hear very quiet/crackly sound from ALSA's aplay command.

Once, I log in to KDE, the sound works fine.

When a different user on the machine logs in via KDE, their sound is bad (like mine is when I use a text console).

What could be going wrong here? Are the current settings stored in any file or just in the relevant portions of the running kernel? Where are sound settings stored between boots?

I've inspected the working mixer levels with rexima (when I'm logged in via KDE). If after boot at the text prompt, I set things similarly, it still doesn't work.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks,
-Ivan

Here are some relevant versions (I am running Sid with a 2.6.7 kernel that I compiled):
-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.7
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C

Versions of packages alsa-base depends on:
ii  alsa-utils                    1.0.5-3    Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
ii  debconf                       1.4.30     Debian configuration management sy
ii  debianutils                   2.8.4      Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii  module-init-tools             3.1-pre5-3 tools for managing Linux kernel mo
ii  modutils                      2.4.26-1   Linux module utilities
ii  psmisc                        21.5-1     Utilities that use the proc filesy

-- debconf information:
  alsa-base/alsactl_store_on_shutdown: autosave always