I'm having problems with Mandrake 9.1, which uses Arts and locks up the /dev/dsp

MPlayer, Xine etc. have problems using /dev/dsp when Arts is running and reports "/dev/dsp busy". The only way to get them to work is by killing the arts server, but I dont wanna do that because then all system sounds are gone
Can someone tell me how to get rid of this problem, or do I have to live with it ?
Plz advise