Hi,
Thanks for sharing your tip.
/sbin/service alsasound stop/start gives the same results on my notebook.
I still do not have a master volume (or any other change in sliders in
alsamixer).
JeeBee.
Sometimes I have noticed that just using /etc/init.d/alsasound
start/stop gives the "in use" errors, but you might try
$ /sbin/service alsasound stop
$ /sbin/service alsasound start