Those of you who know the workaround for this,please ignore this mail. This is directed at newbies (like me) who are still struggling to get sound on the above mentioned card using ALSA. Firstly, this card is not supported under ALSA (as it uses the emu10k1x chipset). Following a thread in another forum, here is what I did :
1. Look below your mouse and keyboard slots. If you are using a dimension desktop, you will find a small black raised cover.
2. Pry it open with a knife. Dell has tried to hide the connectors for the onboard sound using that black patch.
3. Exorcise the system, i.e, remove the soundblaster card from the system. Enable the onboard sound in BIOS.
4. Now, when you install (I have Mandrake 9.1) linux, your onboard soundcard should get detected. My onboard soundcard uses the intel8x0 chipset, which is supported under ALSA!!
5. What you hear is what you see
If somebody managed to get sound without removing the soundblaster card, please let me know.
This was posted in some other thread at a different linux forum. Somehow, even now there are so many postings regarding this topic in numerous linux forums. From personal experience, I know it can be irritating to have no sound on your system. So, I hope this mail helps.
Regards,
jeeves