nForce2 sound not working on Mandrake 9.0

[ajaygautam]

Hello Guys,

Distro: Mandrake 9.0, stock kernel: 2.4.19-16

I have the ASUS A7N8X delux motherboard with the nForce2 chipset, and onboard nvidia sound card. Other hardware in the system includes GeForce4 display, maxtor had disk, samsung cd writer.

I downloaded and installed the nForce RPM (NVIDIA_nforce-1.0-0248.mdk90up_2.4.19_16.athlon.rpm). I got the LAN card (nvnet) to work, but nvaudio does not work.

There is no sound from the speakers at all. Just to verify that the speakers are working fine, I connected the speakers to my cd player and confirmed that the speakers are working fine.

I tried manually "modprobe nvaudio". The modules (soundcore, ac97_codec, nvaudio) all load up just fine, but there is no sound at the soundcard. "modprobe i810_audio" fails: "No such device"

- "mpg123 somefile.mp3" does not give out any sound
- "xine -A oss" sometimes loads fine, but no sound. At other times, it fails to load citing problems with oss
- similarly, xmms loads fine, but fails to produce output. The bars are working, but no sound
- I downloaded a test file from the nvidia board, and did "cat file > /dev/dsp" but no sound.

The colume control also seems to be OK. I ran aumix, which reported volume at 67%.

I have read the motherboard manual and checked the BIOS to verify that all Audio related settings are enabled.

I have read about others also facing a lot of problems with nForce2 audio chipset.

My modules.conf file is:

*******
probeall scsi_hostadapter ide-scsi
alias eth0 nvnet
alias sound-slot-1 nvaudio
probeall usb-interface usb-ohci
alias /dev/nvidia* nvidia
*******

I have tried converting sound-slot-1 to sound-slot-0, no sound with that too

lsmod output:
*******
nvidia 1469056 10 (autoclean)
nvaudio 22240 0
soundcore 3780 0 [nvaudio]
ac97_codec 9928 0 [nvaudio]
nfsd 66576 0 (autoclean)
lockd 46480 0 (autoclean) [nfsd]
sunrpc 60188 0 (autoclean) [nfsd lockd]
af_packet 13000 0 (autoclean)
nvnet 26112 2 (autoclean)
supermount 14340 2 (autoclean)
nls_iso8859-1 2844 7 (autoclean)
nls_cp850 3580 2 (autoclean)
vfat 9588 2 (autoclean)
fat 31864 0 (autoclean) [msdos vfat]
ide-cd 28712 0
cdrom 26848 0 [sr_mod ide-cd]
ide-scsi 8212 1
scsi_mod 90372 2 [sr_mod ide-scsi]
usb-ohci 18216 0 (unused)
usbcore 58304 1 [usb-ohci]
rtc 6560 0 (autoclean)
ext3 74004 1
jbd 38452 1 [ext3]
*******

relevant "lspci -vvv" sections:
*******
00:05.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation: Unknown device 006b (rev a2)
Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 0c11
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66Mhz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 0 (250ns min, 3000ns max)
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 3
Region 0: Memory at ea000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation: Unknown device 006a (rev a1)
Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 8095
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66Mhz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 0 (500ns min, 1250ns max)
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 5
Region 0: I/O ports at d000 [size=256]
Region 1: I/O ports at d400 [size=128]
Region 2: Memory at ea080000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
*******

dmesg contains:
*******
Intel 810 + AC97 Audio, version 0.21, 06:08:08 Nov 26 2002
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:06.0 to 64
i810: NVIDIA nForce Audio found at IO 0xd400 and 0xd000, IRQ 5
i810_audio: Audio Controller supports 6 channels.
ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, id: 0x414c:0x4720 (ALC650)
i810_audio: AC'97 codec 0, new EID value = 0x05c7
i810_audio: AC'97 codec 0, DAC map configured, total channels = 6
*******

System Log contains:

*******
Jan 5 18:19:04 localhost kernel: Intel 810 + AC97 Audio, version 0.21, 06:08:08 Nov 26 2002
Jan 5 18:19:04 localhost kernel: PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:06.0 to 64
Jan 5 18:19:04 localhost kernel: i810: NVIDIA nForce Audio found at IO 0xd400 and 0xd000, IRQ 5
Jan 5 18:19:04 localhost kernel: i810_audio: Audio Controller supports 6 channels.
Jan 5 18:19:04 localhost kernel: ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, id: 0x414c:0x4720 (ALC650)
Jan 5 18:19:04 localhost kernel: i810_audio: AC'97 codec 0, new EID value = 0x05c7
Jan 5 18:19:04 localhost kernel: i810_audio: AC'97 codec 0, DAC map configured, total channels = 6
Jan 5 18:19:04 localhost sound: Loading sound module (nvaudio) succeeded
....
Jan 5 18:19:05 localhost aumix: vol set to 67, 67
Jan 5 18:19:05 localhost aumix: pcm set to 67, 67
Jan 5 18:19:05 localhost aumix: speaker set to 67, 67
Jan 5 18:19:05 localhost aumix: line set to 67, 67, P
Jan 5 18:19:05 localhost aumix: mic set to 68, 68, R
Jan 5 18:19:05 localhost aumix: cd set to 67, 67, P
Jan 5 18:19:05 localhost aumix: igain set to 67, 67, P
Jan 5 18:19:05 localhost aumix: line1 set to 67, 67, P
Jan 5 18:19:05 localhost aumix: phin set to 67, 67, P
Jan 5 18:19:05 localhost aumix: phout set to 67, 67
Jan 5 18:19:05 localhost aumix: video set to 67, 67, P
Jan 5 18:19:05 localhost sound: Loading mixer settings succeeded
*******

Any help / info / links / tips in getting audio to work will be highly appreaicted.

TIA

Ajay Gautam
ajaygautam@yahoo.com

[frontier_user]

Originally posted by ajaygautam

- I downloaded a test file from the nvidia board, and did "cat file > /dev/dsp" but no sound.

Be shure that the link /dev/dsp is correct.
ln -s /dev/dsp0 /dev/dsp
If you have more or an old soundcard installed correct /dev/dsp(x)... or uninstall the other soundcards....