Howto diagnose sound problems?

[Clemens Eisserer]

Hi,

A friend of mine has an "Acer Timeline 4810T" (some new intel hda
soundchip), and I installed Karmic Alpha6 on it.

However she experiences sound problems, which look like a hanging audio device:

- KDE apps stop playing sound
- Songbird completly blocks waiting for the sound-device to become availebl
- Flash plays two seconds of video, but then gets stuck

The problem only dissapear if she reboots.
I am not sure howto diagnose any further, and idea which log-files are relevant.
Do you think this is more likely a pulseaudio problem, or an alsa one?

Thank you in advance, Clemens