hi and thanks for the help so far!,
Sure....
the hdsp module is loaded /sbin/lsmod: snd-hdsp 46732 0 (autoclean)
cat /proc/asound/cards 0 [default ]: H-DSP - Hammerfall DSP RME Hammerfall DSP + Multiface at 0xfeae0000, irq 5
the motherboards intel sound chip has now disappeared but thats ok...
It is possible to change /etc/modules.conf so that both drivers are loaded...
i ran alsaconf again and now and everything seems a lot healthier the hdsploader works (the red Host light is now off) as does hdspconf and hdspmixer
so everything looks fine but when i start pd it hangs for about 20 seconds and then outputs the following errors, then quits.
Try "pd -jack" to start it with audio directed to the Jack server. It is using the default which is ALSA, and ALSA is not available because it is being used by Jack :-)
-- Fernando