Sound device has been blown away

[dave at tokyocomedy.com (Dave Gutteridge)]

> 
> if i remember correctly the way you have the sound set
> up with firefox that it is CPU hog? correct if i wrong
> wrong.

I think you are right. My system seems to have slowed down. As I type
this right now in Evolution, it's moving slowly. And I'm not even
playing any sound!

If I understand correctly, in order to get sound to work in FireFox, I
transferred some of the sound processing over to the CPU by configuring
an .asoundrc file.

That seems to be coming with a price of overall lowered performance, and
the sound occassionally cutting out.

Is there a solution to this that doesn't require buying a new computer?

Dave