My box has a 7N1F2 motherboard (nforce 2, C-Media CMI9761 chip), PVR-250 with grey remote. Using the onboard audio line out.

The box was running an old R4v? release and the volume control did not control the volume. It was 2 years ago and I don't remember the exact reason but it was a known issue.

I did a fresh install of R5D1. The remote volume buttons bring up the OSD and do not control the level except to cut it off if you drive it to 0%. This was the same behavior of the old release.

I verified that audio output is /dev/dsp, "use internal volume controls" is ticked, mixer device is /dev/mixer and mixer control is PCM.

Any suggestions on things to look at are appreciated.

A followup to my own post. I had another hard drive that I installed R5C7 on and I swapped out the drive with R5D1 and there was no difference with the volume level control.