[vox-tech] ac97 sound problems

[Kai Harris]

I'm having problems getting sound out of my onboard soundcard.  This appears 
to be a fairly common problem for other Mandrake users (i recently upgraded 
to 8.2, although the sound didn't work in 8.1 either) gauging from the 
Mandrake Support website and various Google searches.  However, I have been 
unable to find a description/solution to my particular problem.

I'm not getting any sound at all out of my VIA VT8233 AC97 integrated 
soundcard.  Here is a list of what I know about the device:

1. the ac97 device driver is being loaded on startup:
from dmesg:
	Via 686a audio driver 1.9.1
	ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, id: 0x414c:0x4710 (ALC200/200P)
	via82cxxx: board #1 at 0xE800, IRQ 11

	via_audio: ignoring drain playback error -11
	via_audio: ignoring drain playback error -11
	via_audio: ignoring drain playback error -11

I'm not sure what the "ignoring drain playback error" message is, i'm hoping 
someone might be able to shed some light on that.

2. the soundcard is setup as a module.
from /etc/modules.conf:
	alias sound-slot-0 via82cxxx_audio

3. the file permissions for /dev/sound:
	crw-rw----    1 kai      audio     14,   4 Dec 31  1969 audio
	crw-rw----    1 kai      audio     14,   3 Dec 31  1969 dsp
	crw-rw----    1 kai      audio     14,   5 Dec 31  1969 dspW
	crw-rw----    1 kai      audio     14,   0 Dec 31  1969 mixer
	crw-rw----    1 kai      audio     14,   1 Dec 31  1969 sequencer
	crw-rw----    1 kai      audio     14,   8 Dec 31  1969 sequencer2
and for /dev/dsp:
	lr-xr-xr-x       1 root     root              9 Apr 14 11:56 dsp -> sound/dsp

4.  top shows multiple copies of aRtsd running and I cannot kill them.  They 
continue to run after I log out of KDE and X and cannot be killed by their 
owner (me), or by root.  If I completely log out and then log in as root, 
they are still running.  One of these processes uses a significant amount of 
CPU% (80-90%).

It seems to me that this is a very likely culprit.  Is it possible for aRtsd 
to bork so that it won't even respond to a kill signal?  where would I go to 
look for reasons for such a freeze?

5.  when playing an mp3 using mpg123 directly after a reboot, mpg123 plays 
without returning an error message.  however, there is no sound.  Ctrl-c 
mpg123 and run it again returns an error message:
	audio: Resource temporarily unavailable

6.  Logging into X and KDE gives error message:
	error: Error while initializing the sound driver:
	device /dev/dsp can't be opened (Resource temporarily unavailable)
	The sound server will continue, using the null output device

I do not know what to do.  I have looked for help at the Mandrake Support 
center and done multiple google searches on everything from my particular 
error messages to generic ac97 support.  I have searched VIA's support 
center.  Anybody have an idea?  Help!

Kai Harris