Thanks ... I'm going to need to ponder this for a while. I can't see anything obviously wrong with your levels, other than 100% is too high (maybe reduce to 80%). But that won't stop your sound, only distort it.

I went to the zepto home page, and they don't provide any Linux support that I could find. :angry:

I checked for any BIOS update involving sound:
ftp://ftp.zepto.dk/Znote3414W/BIOS/Changelog.txt
but found none.

... and the driver support page has nothing for Linux. :angry: (nor XP !! ). :blink:
ftp://ftp.zepto.dk/Znote3414W/Drivers

I note that the ICH8 family is relatively new to alsa, although there was an update in alsa-1.0.11 adding a patch for Intel ICH8 in the alsa-driver. Hence your alsa 1.0.14 should include that patch.

I also note there a number of new updates for the RealTek ALC268 going from stable alsa-1.0.14 to unstable alsa-1.0.15RC1 (specifically for acer and toshiba which also use ALC268). But I don't know enough to suggest an upgrade to an alsa release candidate (it might even make things worse) ?? ... I simply do not know.

I do note that user vintagepc had a problem with ICH8 that no one was able to offer help on:
http://forums.suselinuxsupport.de/index.ph...897&hl=ich8
... in the end vintagepc found his own solution (post#6):
.... to which users deadroo and lfeagan adopted a similar approach and it appeared to work.

You could go to IRC channel #alsa (off of 'freenode") and try to get real time support. ... Or possibly attempt vintagepc's approach ... I don't know enough about this to offer anything other than speculation and some research.

Good luck and please keep us appraised as to your progress (or lack there of).