NForce-audio, using nvsound with NForce 430
 

Has anyone used the combination of the nvsound module with 430 chipset? I recently purchased the Gigabyte GA-K8N51PVMT-9 and am trying to get the built in audio working.

The board does use the NVidia audio, here is lspci:I use Gentoo and have upgraded to the 2.6.15 kernel, and used these kernel configs:
No other modules in the Device Drivers->Sound section were built.

Then I `emerge nforce-audio`, which gives me the nvsound module.

After a `modprobe nvsound` I get:
These are the only sound related modules which get loaded.

The next issue is modules.conf, using the Gentoo modules-update system, I add the line:
This is the only line related to sound in modules.conf

The problem is that after all of this (which follows the NVidia Release notes as far as I can tell), I get no devices.

Gentoo uses udev, which is supposed to create the devices. On module load, I get this:
Which is good, but no devices get created in the sound class, which is what would cause udev to do its magic.

In short, the module gets inserted with no errors but does not create the neccessary devices. Has anyone gotten this to work?

Are there any NVidia people lurking who can see what I'm missing?

Thanks,

Spencer

Re: NForce-audio, using nvsound with NForce 430
 

I'm having the exact same problem with a Gigabyte GA-K8N51GMF9 running with SUSE 10.0. I installed the NFORCE 1.0.0310 package, following the sound driver installation procedures according to Nvidia, so my /etc/modprobe.conf.local includes:

My outputs for lspci, lsmod, udevmonitor, and the resultant lack of of sound devices are identical.

Re: NForce-audio, using nvsound with NForce 430
 

I've been doing a little reading on modules.conf. Just to stay focused on what is important, forget about modules.conf. Its not that important. All that modules.conf does is give you a convinient way of referencing your modules. Alias lines allow you to refer to a module by another name. So NVidia's lines let you do `modprobe sound-slot-0` and the nvsound module will be loaded. Of course the user would never do this, but a program (maybe the kernel) could request that sound-slot-0 be loaded, and the right thing would happen without the requesting program needing to know what sound driver you wanted to use.

Aliasing to 'off' prevents the module from ever being loaded. In this case we don't want the intel drivers loading. The install and remove commands run when the module is inserted and removed and for just saving mixer settings.

What this means for testing is that the module.conf settings can be ignored. If you are doing `modprobe nvsound` manually, then you don't need any help from modules.conf. Similarly we don't need the lines about mixer settings since our problems are a little more basic than that. As long as you are not running ALSA you shouldn't have problems with modules being loaded accidentally (like the intel modules).

Just thought I'd mention that, since I spent a lot of time worrying about whether I had modules.conf correct, not realizing it was a convinience, not a requirement.

Re: NForce-audio, using nvsound with NForce 430
 

Also, for the NVidia devs, if anyone is listening, the install and remove lines seem overly complicated. Why not use the following?:

post-install nvsound /usr/bin/nvmix-reg -f /etc/nvmixrc -L >/dev/null 2>&1 || :

pre-remove nvsound /usr/bin/nvmix-reg -f /etc/nvmixrc -L >/dev/null 2>&1 || :

This will save the restore/save the settings just after/before install/remove. That's what these lines do right?

Any shell script guys know what the '|| ' does?


Spencer

Re: NForce-audio, using nvsound with NForce 430
 

Ok thanks for the explanation spencer, the modprobe.conf makes more sense now. My first thought was that maybe there was a driver conflict, but looking closer at lsmod, I don't see any other sound drivers being loaded. Only switched to linux a couple months ago, still learning just how deep you can poke into the workings of your computer with it.

Coincidentally, the nvidia install/remove for the 2.4 kernel looks more like what you proposed:

post-install nvsound sleep 1; /usr/bin/nvmix-reg -f /etc/nvmixrc -L >/dev/null 2>&1 ||:
pre-remove nvsound /usr/bin/nvmix-reg -f /etc/nvmixrc -S >/dev/null 2>&1 ||:

Re: NForce-audio, using nvsound with NForce 430
 

Thanks for the explanation Spencer.

Any luck configuring the sound ?

My mb is a ASUS A8n-VM CSM, also nforce4 430 chipset:

$ lspci | grep -i audio
0000:00:10.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP51 High Definition Audio (rev a2)

And none of the drivers (nvsound or intel8x0) recognizes anything: at least they don't create (udev) the proper device nodes under /dev.

Is the nvsound OSS only !? :(

Does anyone knows how to make snd-intel8x0 module work for this as well ?

thanks in advance for any help!

Re: NForce-audio, using nvsound with NForce 430
 

I'm not familiar with why the intel drivers worked in the past.I'm thinking it was because some MBs had a seperate chip for the sound. Since our boards use the NForce for audio, I think we are stuck with using the NVidia drivers.

Yes, it is my understanding the nvsound is OSS only. Which is actually OK for us since it means we only have to worry about 2 modules, soundcore and nvsound. I believe it is the case the the current version of the driver just doesn't work with the new chipset and we will have to wait for a new version.

I would love to confirmation that this is the situation. In which case I'm happy to wait.