Nevermind. Figured it out. I got the tip from a Linspire messsage board,
of all places.
I commented out the following in /etc/modprobe.conf
#alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
#options snd-card-0 index=0
#options snd-intel8x0 index=0
#remove snd-intel8x0 { /usr/sbin/alsactl store 0 >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; };
# /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-intel8x0
And replaced it with...
# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
# module options should go here
# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
# card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
Rebooted and now the sound is clear. No more crackling. No more hissing.
Very weird. After 2 years of ignoring this problem and then hoping it went
away with CentOS 5, this fixed it. Thank you, Linspire users. :)
Preston