Hi, Sorry if this email is not for devel mailing list, but this sounds to me like a bug or development problem. If I am wrong, I will post it on the user list. And for the long email ... I just wanted to describe everything I tried. I found a lot of messages about problems with sound chip AD1986A on motherboard Asus M2NPV-VM. It is almost always the same problem, surround does not work and sound mutes (module dies) when the user change volume. That is my problem too. I found a lot of solutions by using "model=3stack", sometimes with "position_fix=1", but that does not work for all the users. I checked the list, I read dozens of emails, but nothing helped. I found a few patches on the list, but all of them were for kernels < 2.6.22. I used Slackware 12.0 and model=3stack caused a terrible "weeping" sound on the rear left speaker, but the stereo worked. I read a lot of success stories with this motherboard and Ubuntu and after playing whole week long on Slackware (kernel 2.6.21.5 and 2.6.22.6), I decided to try it with Ubuntu Feisty (2.6.20 and 2.6.22.9), although I did not believe that Ubuntu should help. It actually helped partly because the weeping sound disappeared, but I had only stereo. When I changed the "Channel Mode" jack in alsamixer from 2ch to 6ch, sound muted and module died. The only way to get the sound back was to stop playing file, and rmmod/modprobe snd_hda_intel again. Using model=6stack gives me surround sound by using "speaker-test -c6 ..." (nice female voice guessed right every speaker) but module was still dying as soon as I changed volume. Does someone have an idea what to do with this chip ... I am really desperate and beginning to hate this great motherboard ... Thanks a lot. M.