ALSA and nvidia nforce3 on Compaq R3000 laptop

[pcguarantee]

I do not wish to be a bother, but I'm new to the world of Linux and, at the advise of a good friend, chose Gentoo as my distro--which I love by the way. The only problem is, I KNOW NOTHING about configuring Linux. I actually count myself quite lucky, I've got 2005.0 installed and KDE up and running. Frankly, it's mostly completely operational.

PROBLEM: I have no sound.

if I cat /dev/urandom > /dev/dsp I DO get whitenoise.

But during bootup, I get an error that nvsound could not be loaded. If I go into the KDE Control Center and select SoundSystem I get the error:

---Unable to start the sound server to retrieve possible sound I/O methods.
---Only automatic detection will be available.

The KDE Info Center tells me under Card config: --no soundcards--

I have downloaded and installed nvidia's nvsound driver.

Here is lspci and lsmod...I just need someone to hold my hand, tell me it'll be all right, and guide me through it

Thanks in advance for all your help!

LSPCI:
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 Host Bridge (rev a4)
0000:00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 LPC Bridge (rev a6)
0000:00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation nForce3 SMBus (rev a4)
0000:00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation nForce3 USB 1.1 (rev a5)
0000:00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation nForce3 USB 1.1 (rev a5)
0000:00:02.2 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation nForce3 USB 2.0 (rev a2)
0000:00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation nForce3 Audio (rev a2)
0000:00:06.1 Modem: nVidia Corporation: Unknown device 00d9 (rev a2)
0000:00:08.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation nForce3 IDE (rev a5)
0000:00:0a.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 PCI Bridge (rev a2)
0000:00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 AGP Bridge (rev a4)
0000:00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
0000:00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
0000:00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
0000:00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 420 Go 32M] (rev a3)
0000:02:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB21 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)
0000:02:01.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
0000:02:02.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)
0000:02:04.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1620 PC Card Controller (rev 01)
0000:02:04.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1620 PC Card Controller (rev 01)
0000:02:04.2 System peripheral: Texas Instruments PCI1620 Firmware Loading Function (rev 01)

LSMOD:
Module Size Used by
yenta_socket 22792 2
rsrc_nonstatic 9984 1 yenta_socket
i2c_nforce2 7936 0
nvidia 4568252 14
8139too 26752 0
mii 5888 1 8139too
sata_sis 8320 0
sata_sx4 14724 0
sata_nv 10372 0
sata_via 9732 0
sata_svw 8836 0
sata_sil 10500 0
sata_promise 12164 0
libata 49288 7 sata_sis,sata_sx4,sata_nv,sata_via,sata_svw,sata_sil,sata_promise
ohci_hcd 21384 0
uhci_hcd 32032 0

Also, here's my /etc/modules.d/alsa:
# Alsa 0.9.X kernel modules' configuration file.
# $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/media-sound/alsa-utils/files/alsa-modules.conf-rc,v 1.4 2004/11/16 01:31:22 eradicator Exp $

# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd
# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore

##
## IMPORTANT:
## You need to customise this section for your specific sound card(s)
## and then run `update-modules' command.
## Read alsa-driver's INSTALL file in /usr/share/doc for more info.
##

# OSS/Free portion - 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

## ALSA portion
alias snd-card-0 nvsound
alias sound-slot-0 nvsound
alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss

# Set this to the correct number of cards.
options snd cards_limit=0
~

[agentblue]

i dont think nvidia drivers support alsa,i cant get my sound to work correctly and im using the generic i intel8x0 driver,i get the same error in the control panel about auto detection and no card.that was with oss and alsa.im stumpded i just want sound to work correctly.........