LinuxQuestions.org - Sound Card not bein detected in PCLinuxOS

I have a Compaq Deskpro DPEND P600 and while sound used to work on WinXP, PCLinuxOS gives me the following message in Control Center > Sound Configuration:

Code:

No Sound Card has been detected on your machine. Please verify that a Linux-supported Sound Card is correctly plugged in.



You can visit our hardware database at:



http://www.pclinuxoshwdb.com/



Note: if you've an ISA PnP sound card, you'll have to use the alsaconf or the sndconfig program.  Just type "alsaconf" or "sndconfig" in a console.

alsaconf finds 2 sound cards in my system and I chose to configure the ESS card as that's what the BIOS says is present. It goes though the configuration and finally says

Code:

 Now ALSA is ready to use.

 For adjustment of volumes, use your favorite mixer.



 Have a lot of fun!

but no luck. Infact at times, it just works for a day or two and then no sound again. The sound icon in the tray usually shows sound as muted.

Surprising enough, I have a sound file in /etc/modprobe.d
which has the following in it:

Code:

alias snd-card-0 snd-es18xx

alias sound-slot-0 snd-es18xx

For the record, I also have the following files in the /etc/modprobe.d folder:

blacklist
blacklist-compat
blacklist-mdv
ipw-no-associate.conf
ipw3946d
snd-oss
snd-usb-audio
sound

In the past I had connected a USB sound device which used to work well, but I removed it.