Nigel, thanks a lot for your valuable input! With help from your comments I could solve my problem :-) This was the trouble-causing original status: cat /proc/asound/cards without usb-soundcard: 0 [nForce3 ]: NFORCE - NVidia nForce3 NVidia nForce3 with ALC650F at irq 19 1 [Modem ]: ICH-MODEM - NVidia nForce3 Modem NVidia nForce3 Modem at irq 17 cat /proc/asound/cards with usb-soundcard plugged into running system: 0 [nForce3 ]: NFORCE - NVidia nForce3 NVidia nForce3 with ALC650F at irq 19 1 [Modem ]: ICH-MODEM - NVidia nForce3 Modem NVidia nForce3 Modem at irq 17 .... so no difference so far... cat /proc/asound/cards with usb-soundcard plugged prior to systemstart: 0 [nForce3 ]: NFORCE - NVidia nForce3 NVidia nForce3 with ALC650F at irq 18 1 [Omega ]: USB-Audio - Lexicon Omega Lexicon Lexicon Omega at usb-0000:00:02.1-1, full speed 2 [Modem ]: ICH-MODEM - NVidia nForce3 Modem NVidia nForce3 Modem at irq 17 so I added the following lines to my formerly empty modprobe.conf.local: alias snd-card-1 snd-usb-audio options snd-usb-audio index=1 now, after booting the system cat /proc/asound/cards tells: 0 [nForce3 ]: NFORCE - NVidia nForce3 NVidia nForce3 with ALC650F at irq 18 and then plug in the usb soundcard into the running system, cat /proc/asound/cards tells: 0 [nForce3 ]: NFORCE - NVidia nForce3 NVidia nForce3 with ALC650F at irq 18 1 [Omega ]: USB-Audio - Lexicon Omega Lexicon Lexicon Omega at usb-0000:00:02.1-1, full speed thanks a lot and all the best Susanne ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user