I have recently installed Slackware 11 on my machine and I have been able to get everything to work except for the sound.

I get the following 2 errors all the time:


Error #1:

artsmessage
Sound server fatal error:
cpu overload, aborting

Error #2:

aRts had to restart!


I have tried to use alsaconf and it detects my sound card (Creative Labs SB Audigy [rev 03] ) and then says it is configured.

After that, it says "Now ALSA is ready to use. For adjustment of volumes, use your favorite mixer."

My sound still does not work after this. Does anyone know how to go about fixing this problem?

1. Add your user to the audio group.

2. Use alsamixer or kmix and set your volumes / unmute all applicable settings.

3. You may have the wrong server selected for aRTS. So go to the KDE Control Center > Sound and Multimedia > Sound System > Hardware tab. Be sure to choose ALSA (abbr) from the drop down list of audio devices. The default setting is 'Autodetect' and this may be the problem.

I opened the Konsole, changed to root, and entered this command to add me to the audio group:

usermod -g audio username

I made sure that the volume was not muted in the mixer.

I also chose ALSA from the list of audio devices in the Sound System's Hardware tab.


Any other suggestions?

I did notice that it had changed the Sound System Hardware to "Autodetect".

If I try to change this to ALSA, it has a progress bar and above it, it says Starting Sound System.

I get Error #1 from the first post about 3 or 4 times during this progress and then, when it gets to 90%, it jumps back down to the beginning of the progress bar. It continues this over and over...

Okay I finally found my problem!!

I have an on-board sound card on my motherboard. All I had to do was disable the on-board sound on my motherboard.

Yay! Listening to music now!

How did you find out that you had a on-board soundcard on your motherboard? And how did you disable it?

Well, I knew that I had on-board sound on my motherboard since I bought it when I built the computer. I just didn't know that I was going to have to disable it in order for my sound to work with another sound card.

In order to disable it, I went into the BIOS configuration (when booting the computer) and there is a Peripheral section within the configuration. It is in the Peripheral configuration that I was able to enable or disable the on-board sound on the motherboard.