[vox-tech] ac97 sound problems
Mark K. Kim
vox-tech@lists.lugod.org
Wed, 24 Apr 2002 23:59:17 -0700 (PDT)
I think I setup a Mandrake 8.2 on a system with ac97. Is your machine a
Sony VAIO, slight purplish-silver color with a fold-out cover for the
floppy? Is it a system with 2 USB connections on front as well as the
back, got IEEE 1394-like connector with a disclaimer that it may not work
with all 1394 devices? And it's got both DVD and CDRW? It also has a
blue-LED power button that's long-thin-width shape on the front low-middle
center? I've seen that system poping up everywhere these days; apparently
it hit the sweet spot in price and power.
Mandrake 8.2 does support that system's sound card, but the autodetection
doesn't work quite well with that sound board. You'll need to modify
/etc/modules.conf to use one of the Alsa drivers instead of the kernel's
sound driver. I don't have the exact info at the moment (and won't until
next month, as I am nowhere near that machine right now), but you can get
the information from Alsa's homepage:
http://www.alsa-project.org/
Here's what you'll need to do:
1. Go to their sound card matrix and find your sound card.
It should tell you which driver you should use.
2. Go to their manual section and find one of the examples
that tells you what to add to your /etc/modules.conf (or
/etc/conf.modules). The example for adding code to
/etc/modules.conf should be about 10 lines. Do not look for
the example for ISAPNP or PNP, but the normal one.
3. In your /etc/modules.conf or /etc/conf.modules, remove the
reference to the current sound card driver.
4. Type in the example code you found in step #2, but replace
the references to the example sound card driver with yours.
Several of their examples are also for systems with more than
one sound card, so remove any references to extra sound cards.
5. Reboot. Your sound card should now work.
BTW, you don't need to download their drivers from the website; Mandrake
already comes with them. But you do need the documentation from their
website for steps #1 and #2.
If you're not sure how to do the above, just let me know and I'll get back
to you in about a week.
-Mark
On Wed, 24 Apr 2002, Kai Harris wrote:
> 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
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>
--
Mark K. Kim
http://www.cbreak.org/
PGP key available upon request.