"cranky" is not a particularly useful diagnostic term.
To diagnose the problem, you must at a minimum provide information on what distro you are using, what system you are using it on, and what sound card you have (if that is a card and not a built-in).
Also, if you know whether you are using alsa or arts or oss or some other sound system. Though, if you don't know that, given the other information we can figure it out.
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