OK no problem and thanks for your trouble.
It is not a huge issue and wont stop me using LXDE, I was just surprised that I had this problem. Not sure now because I had some issues with the laptop (needed a new cmos battery which entailed a complete strip down to replace so I installed a larger hdd 120gb instead of 20gb) but I seem to remember that the initial install and before I did an update of the system that system sound worked and when I did the new install with the new hdd I did not test it before updating!
Anyone else have any ideas please let me know...
Stuart