Sound issues
 

Long story short, my wife wanted to use her microphone and after installing audacity I noticed the sound no longer appeared to be working at all thinking Ive somehow shorted something bu plugging into the wrong port, I went and got a new soundcard (Ive check the speakers work the volume is not on mute the connections are right but no sound) now ubuntu seems to identify the new soundcard, but still no sound Ive tried reinstalling alsa but to no avail about 48% through the build it keeps telling me the build failed, enclosed is as follows the soundcard info, the os info and the error log on the build from what I can tell. 0 [CMI8738 ]: CMI8738-MC6 - C-Media CMI8738
C-Media CMI8738 (model 39) at 0x0, irq 22
1 [Camera ]: USB-Audio - Venus USB2.0 Camera
Vimicro Corp. Venus USB2.0 Camera at usb-0000:00:1d.7-1, high speed

build log
│ for i in control postinst postrm ; do \
│ if [ -f debian/$i.orig ]; then \
│ mv -f debian/$i.orig debian/$i ; \
│ fi ; \
│ done
│ rm -f control-munge
│ make mrproper
│ make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/modules/alsa-driver'
│ rm -f .depend *.o snd.map*
│ rm -f modules/*.o modules/*.ko
│ make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/src/modules/alsa-driver/include'
│ rm -f .depend core *.o sndversions.h modules/*.ver modules/*.stamp
│ make -C sound clean
│ make[3]: Entering directory `/usr/src/modules/alsa-driver/include/sound'
│ rm -f *.h

os info

ubuntu release 11.04 natty
2.6.38-12-generic
gnome 2.32.1
running pentium 4 2.66 ghz 488.1 mb ram

Thanks for helping out I know just enough to get myself into trouble.

What style of a microphone is it? You say you replaced the soundcard, but don't specifically say that it's not a USB headset. Also, it's HIGHLY unlikely that you would short something out by plugging the microphone into a speak port, or something similar.

It was an analog plug in mike $6, computer mike, noticed that perhaps the usb webcam with built in microphone might have switched the output to the webcam??? So I went into audacity and switched the output to the soundcard but would this affect other applications??? I ran a soundtest on ubuntu and heard nothing, speakeron, plugged into line out on sound card, soundcard identified as output source. This trouble appeared to have started after installing audacity with lame encoder??? Im shooting around in the dark here but I noticed on my volume properties while using youtube that no applications are listed for playing or recording audio. Volume control icon does not appear to mute or unmute anymore, ran a sound trouble shooter in terminal a dialogue box suggested checking to see if the pcm is muted from what I can tell it is not, 00 showed instead of MM. If there is any other info you need let me know.