No volume change possible

[mad <mad@sharktooth.de>]

Hi,

I can no longer change the volume on my desktop running Debian testing.

In kmix or alsamixer (card: pulseaudio) I can lower the volume but 
nothing happens until the volume switches to zero. Then the sound is 
muted. Above zero the volume is always the same.

On the command line with mplayer I could observe the following:

mplayer -ao alsa test.mp3 # No volume change, only mute. If I change the 
volume too fast (pressing 0 or 9 permanently) the playback crashes (but 
not mplayer).

mplayer -ao pulse test.mp3 # Volume change is possible

mplayer -ao oss test.mp3 # Volume change is possible

Anybody any idea what the problem may be?

On my laptop (also Debian testing, very similar setup) volume change is 
possible.

Thanks in advance
mad