Well I've been twiddling all day and after looking at a few pages I went to this one:- 
http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=247
and ran alsamixer as root and put everything to max including some sliders way over
on the right. After escaping out the desktop sounds started and the Souncard Detection
Utility worked correctly. XMMS and Rhythmbox are now working okay although
XMMS still starts up first time with 100% vol but I can handle that now that the two
 sound outputs are equal.

Although whilst playing back through XMMS and opening the sound controls
produces some background interference so I'll stay away from that for a while!!

I just wonder now whether I can live with 'Sound for events' or risk something 
going wrong if I turn it off :(


-- 
Dave

PC Configuration
================

Assuming the same volume level for the powered external speakers of 50% for both FC1 and FC2.

Motherboard is MS8188E VIA KM400/A Chipset Socket A with AMD 2400+
Hard drives hda and hdb 80GB, Memory 512MB
Built in sound chip AC97 Audi Codec (AC97 2.1) Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro compatible 

Fedora Core 1
=============


XMMS and Rhythmbox and Soundcard detection work OK. The module used under MP3 is esound.

/etc/modules.conf

alias eth0 via-rhine
alias usb-controller usb-uhci
alias usb-controller1 ehci-hcd
alias sound-slot-0 via82cxxx_audio
post-install sound-slot-0 /bin/aumix-minimal -f /etc/.aumixrc -L >/dev/null 2>&1 || :
pre-remove sound-slot-0 /bin/aumix-minimal -f /etc/.aumixrc -S >/dev/null 2>&1 || :





/etc/modprobe.conf
include /etc/modprobe.conf.dist
alias eth0 via-rhine

lsmod


Module                  Size  Used by    Not tainted
via82cxxx_audio        23672   1  (autoclean)
ac97_codec             16680   0  (autoclean) [via82cxxx_audio]
uart401                 7972   0  (autoclean) [via82cxxx_audio]
sound                  71444   0  (autoclean) [via82cxxx_audio uart401]
soundcore               6500   4  (autoclean) [via82cxxx_audio sound]
parport_pc             18468   1  (autoclean)
lp                      8356   0  (autoclean)
parport                36800   1  (autoclean) [parport_pc lp]
autofs                 12052   0  (autoclean) (unused)
via-rhine              14672   1
mii                     3992   0  [via-rhine]
iptable_nat            21752   0  (autoclean) (unused)
iptable_mangle          2808   0  (autoclean) (unused)
ipt_REJECT              4216   1  (autoclean)
ipt_state               1112   6  (autoclean)
ip_conntrack           28616   2  (autoclean) [iptable_nat ipt_state]
iptable_filter          2444   1  (autoclean)
ip_tables              14752   7  [iptable_nat iptable_mangle ipt_REJECT ipt_state iptable_filter]
floppy                 56348   0  (autoclean)
sg                     34796   0  (autoclean)
sr_mod                 17016   0  (autoclean)
ide-scsi               11856   0
scsi_mod              109384   3  [sg sr_mod ide-scsi]
ide-cd                 34176   0
cdrom                  34048   0  [sr_mod ide-cd]
keybdev                 2624   0  (unused)
hid                    23652   0  (unused)
ehci-hcd               19784   0  (unused)
usb-uhci               25740   0  (unused)
usbcore                77984   1  [hid ehci-hcd usb-uhci]
mousedev                5204   1  (autoclean)
input                   5824   0  (autoclean) [keybdev hid mousedev]
ext3                   70916   2
jbd                    51020   2  [ext3]
 

Fedora Core 2
=============


XMMS starts at FULL volume but after the volume in XMMS is adjusted it works OK. 
Starting Rhythmbox (MusicPlayer) the sound is very low and can't be adjusted.
The XMMS MP3 module is ALSA  1.2.10 with audio HW:0,1 (only option that 
produces sound) mixer card 0 and mixer device PCM)
All sound controls checked for maximum and mutes off.
Soundcard Detection doesn't produce a sound but I answer 'Yes' anyway since it then says 
it's turning the soundcard off anyway :(



/etc/modprobe.conf
 
alias eth0 via-rhine
alias snd-card-0 snd-via82xx

install snd-via82xx /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-via82xx && /usr/sbin/alsactl restore >
/dev/null 2>&1 || :

remove snd-via82xx { /usr/sbin/alsactl store >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; }; /sbin/modprobe -r 
--ignore-remove snd-via82xx

alias usb-controller ehci-hcd
alias usb-controller1 uhci-hcd
 


lsmod

Module                  Size  Used by
snd_pcm_oss            40740  0
nls_utf8                1536  0
nls_cp437               5376  0
vfat                   10496  0
fat                    33472  1 vfat
snd_mixer_oss          13824  3 snd_pcm_oss
snd_via82xx            19104  4
snd_pcm                68872  2 snd_pcm_oss,snd_via82xx
snd_timer              17156  1 snd_pcm
snd_ac97_codec         50436  1 snd_via82xx
snd_page_alloc          7940  2 snd_via82xx,snd_pcm
gameport                3328  1 snd_via82xx
snd_mpu401_uart         4864  1 snd_via82xx
snd_rawmidi            17184  1 snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device          6152  1 snd_rawmidi
snd                    38372  13 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_via82xx,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_ac97_codec,
     snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
soundcore               6112  3 snd
parport_pc             19392  1
lp                      8236  0
parport                29640  2 parport_pc,lp
autofs4                10624  0
rfcomm                 27164  0
l2cap                  16004  5 rfcomm
bluetooth              33636  4 rfcomm,l2cap
sunrpc                101064  1
iptable_nat            17452  0
iptable_mangle          2048  0
ipt_REJECT              4736  1
ipt_state               1536  3
ip_conntrack           24968  2 iptable_nat,ipt_state
iptable_filter          2048  1
ip_tables              13440  5 iptable_nat,iptable_mangle,ipt_REJECT,ipt_state,iptable_filter
via_rhine              15624  0
mii                     3584  1 via_rhine
floppy                 47440  0
sg                     27552  0
scsi_mod               91344  1 sg
dm_mod                 33184  0
uhci_hcd               23708  0
ehci_hcd               21896  0
button                  4504  0
battery                 6924  0
asus_acpi               8472  0
ac                      3340  0
ipv6                  184288  8
ext3                  102376  2
jbd                    40216  1 ext3
 
/var/log/messages

Extract relating to 'sound' showing any sort of failure.
--------------------------------------------------------

 udev[3134]: creating device node '/udev/snd/timer'
 modprobe: FATAL: Error running install command for sound_slot_1
 udev[3220]: creating device node '/udev/mixer'
 modprobe: FATAL: Error running install command for sound_slot_1