[Techtalk] Alsa on Debian unstable

[aec]

Hello

  I am having problems getting sound working on my Dell inspiron 8200
  laptop. 

  I am using Debian Sid, kernel 2.6.8. The card installed in this
  laptop is known as an intel8x0.

  I have up to tonight though it was an alsa or kernel problem but
  just noticed this in dmesg: 
    
  supergrass ~ # dmesg | grep sound
  No soundcards found.
  ALSA sound/pci/intel8x0.c:2514: unable to grab IRQ 7
  ALSA sound/pci/intel8x0.c:2822: joystick(s) found
  ALSA sound/pci/intel8x0m.c:1241: unable to grab IRQ 7

 
  dmesg shows an irq problem, this is new to me in linux, the last time I
  had IRQ issues was with win 98 I think. How does one go about troubleshooting
  IRQ problems in linux?  
  
  This dmesg btw is from the fresh install, oddly though, 3 nights ago, with
  alsa still not working on the old install, dmesg showed only this: 

  supergrass ~ # dmesg | grep sound
  No soundcards found.

  So, I am now not sure what the next step should be? I am thinking even to 
  install XP and see if windows picks up the card, at least that will rule out
  hardware failure? 

  thanks so much...

-- 
Angelina Carlton