I have been reading these boards over the past week trying to get just a muffled squeek from my ALC286 sound card, but it's not happening.

I have tried the Collit, Mad Tux and Turuga methods, and various HDAEnabler and Apple HDA ketxts, various permissions repair and reboots, but nothing will make them produce sound (I'm beginning to think they're dead). Sometimes Sys Prefs shows me 1xIntSpeaker then 2xIntSpeakers, then sometimes no audio output at all.

I'm using Kalyway 10.5.3 distro on a custom-built laptop: Intel Core2Duo 2ghz, 1gb stick, Realtek ALC268, Geforce 8600GS... pretty standard stuff I believe.

n00b q alert: Would upgrading to 10.5.5 or .6 give me a better chance of this card making a noise?

I have read so much about this card I'm getting seriously confused and slightly nauseous, and need some expert help :o/

Thanks for any light you can shed on this!