This is strange but I(newbie) have observed this in the past few days. I have mandrake 10.1 with lilo boot loader

1. whenever I boot into linux with the speakers on I have shut down problems. it hangs at the point "stopping alsa...."

2. when I leave USB pen drive in the slot and do restart, the system wont take me to the dual boot screen at all.

3. it has not been recognizing the usb pen drive when inserted, but it did once previously. why so?

4. Sometimes none of the system configuration tools(like hardDrake) open when invoked from menu. it just shows busy for some time and quits.

5. No audio from Music CD's, but I feel the audio(integrated with mobo) is configured properly as it gives a good drum beat when I go and check audio from the menu. But when I play the CD's no audio comes out, eventhough the track progresses. I checked with the mixer also but no success.

thanks for any assitance to remedy the above

1) You mean that it works when you turn the speakers off prior to shutdown? That's really weird, why/how could
the alsa subsystem know whether your speakers are on or off?

2) I think that's a MB or BIOS issue. That probably would've happened even if you only had Windows installed.

3) Do you have "USB=yes" and STORAGE=yes in /etc/sysconfig/usb ?

4) Try running those commands from a terminal to see some error messages, or optionally
check ~/.xsession-errors.

5) Which program do you use to play CD? If XMMS make sure libcdaudio is activated.

- Peder

Have you updated your system with all the latest patches? There are about 400 files now that need to be updated from the original installation ISOs. I think *some* of these problems were addresses in updates.