I've got an intel-hda in my dell m90 that i've run hardy with its rt kernel for months at 5 ms. I think what your missing is this configuration option. /etc/modprobe.d/sound options snd-hda-intel model=ref position_fix=1 enable=1 index=0 I found a blog post on it when I was trying to get my card working months ago at: http://linux-audio-music.blogspot.com/2008/05/improved-realtime-audio-with-… good luck getting everything working. Nathanael