Problems with ALC889 Optical Output

Ive some problems to get my optical output of the ALC889 working with ALSA. After nights of reading a lot of forums and themes which deal with this subject I didnt found a solution up to now and hopefully Ill get one today. The problem is as follows. My Pc is connected with my DAC by an optical cable because I only want to use this output and I dont have an extra internal soundcard. Ive tried all howto's of configuring ALSA (alsamixer, aplay) without any success except some noise out of the speakers. I also can see all my devices, including the optical one of the Realtek ALC889 (nothing is muted) and I can hear music when my DAC is connected by a USB cable instead of the optical one. So maybe here is anybody with the same setup and he gets sound or are there other possibilities to achieve it e.g. pulseaudio (which Ive also tried without success)? Or are there any conflicts with ALSA and pulseaudio or is it useful to change completely to OSS4? You see a lot of questions and I hope to get an answer to use the optical output for listening to music (no surround..pure stereo..)..

I am using CB Statler on a x86_64 machine

hm..maybe this was a little bit confusing what i wrote(( .. hopefully itll be more clear now. I am using a x86_64 machine with an intel i5 processor and an intel DP55WG board with a realtek soundchip namely ALC889. my aim to use the optical output of the board via toslink to get an interconnection with my external D/A converter and finally headphone amp and headphones. the problem is that i couldnt resolve it to hear something neither with alsa nor with pulseaudio. there is only some scratching of noise. when i am using an usb connection between my pc and the DAC, Ive no problems at all but I am loosing some quality in sound. Itll be kind if anybody can help me or much more better has solved it. btw, ive tried already a lot, in detail i can see my soundcard (Intel hda) and the chip (ALC889), everything is unmuted in alsamixer, i can choose the soundcard. pls pls help me or give just a little hint..

Last edited by tigermilk (2010-10-04 20:38:02)