I will 'play' with the buffers, but WTF@!...2 different pc's with default installs? No one else is having this problem?

I used the knx-hdinstall process instead of the new alternative of knoppix-installer if that makes a difference. Both installs are clean (see previous post on grep messages)

Last common element - using alsa sound - but home is via and office is i845 chipset - no soundcard in either. I have an old soundblaster that I might plug in for testing this.

this raises another noob question: since everything is already installed on my hd - if I install new hardware like a sound card, does the startup script detect this as micro-mini-soft does with their pnp environments?

Let you know in a few some of my buffer attempts. Thanks...