I'm not sure of the interval that my computer (Red Hat 9.0) loses it sound, but when I go to bed the sound wont be working so I have to reboot the computer then it will work. Its almost like a cronjob someplace is disabling the sound by I'm not sure where to look. Any hints of tips would be appreciated greatly.

redhat loses its sound
This also beats me,how come everyday there is a totally unique question in this forum?
your sound card plz?
does lsmod shows anything?
are you running a sound deamon like esd or arts?
have you tried alsa yet?

If you're using Gnome, you are likely using esd. I've noticed that same problem sometimes. When I get home from work, often esd has disappeared from the process list.

I'm not very familiar with sound configs for Linux yet, although I have messed with mine a lot. Is Alsa something I can use like a sound server? Is OSS the same way? I currently use KDE and aRts, and esd via artsdsp. The only problems I've run into w/ this setup is esd disappearing, and browser plugins not loading and/or not making sound where they should because they try to use artsdsp for output (artsdsp can only have 1 instance). Anyone have a solution for me?

well disable arts,your problem should be solved
kde control centre->preferences->sound
what is alsa?
Answers here->
http://www.alsa-project.org/