hello everyone,

I have a Sony Vaio laptop , model PCG-GRZ515G . I have installed RedHat 7.3. I can't get any sound (eg system bell, test sounds, cd audio, etc) to work. The sound card is Intel Corp.|82801CA/CAM AC'97 Audio and works fine under Windows . I've listed some diagnostic info of my system below ... Can anyone out there help me please to get some sound?

thank you in advance, claire


1) often on login I have the following error :

"sound server informational message
error while initializing the sound driver
device /dev/dsp can's be opened (no such device)
the sound server will continue, using the null output device."

2) if i try to load an audio cd , I have an error "CPU overload"

3) [root@geodyn dev]# /sbin/lsmod

Module Size Used by Not tainted
sr_mod 16920 0 (autoclean)
i810_audio 23008 1 (autoclean)
ac97_codec 11904 0 (autoclean) [i810_audio]
soundcore 6692 2 (autoclean) [i810_audio]
radeon 97400 1
agpgart 39488 3
binfmt_misc 7556 1
autofs 12164 0 (autoclean) (unused)
ds 8608 2
yenta_socket 12384 2
pcmcia_core 50752 0 [ds yenta_socket]
eepro100 20336 1
ide-scsi 9664 0
scsi_mod 108608 2 [sr_mod ide-scsi]
ide-cd 30272 0
cdrom 32192 0 [sr_mod ide-cd]
nls_iso8859-1 3488 1 (autoclean)
nls_cp437 5120 1 (autoclean)
vfat 12092 1 (autoclean)
fat 37400 0 (autoclean) [vfat]
mousedev 5312 1
hid 21344 0 (unused)
input 5984 0 [mousedev hid]
usb-uhci 24484 0 (unused)
usbcore 73152 1 [hid usb-uhci]
ext3 67136 2
jbd 49400 2 [ext3]


######################################################


[root@geodyn dev]# cat /dev/sndstat :

this command doesn't return any info ..

######################################################

[root@geodyn dev]# cat /etc/modules.conf

alias parport_lowlevel parport_pc
alias eth0 eepro100
alias usb-controller usb-uhci
alias sound-slot-0 i810_audio
post-install sound-slot-0 /bin/aumix-minimal -f /etc/.aumixrc -L >/dev/null 2>&1 || :
pre-remove sound-slot-0 /bin/aumix-minimal -f /etc/.aumixrc -S >/dev/null 2>&1 || :

#########################################################

[root@geodyn dev]# cat /proc/modules

sr_mod 16920 2 (autoclean)
i810_audio 23008 1 (autoclean)
ac97_codec 11904 0 (autoclean) [i810_audio]
soundcore 6692 2 (autoclean) [i810_audio]
radeon 97400 1
agpgart 39488 3
binfmt_misc 7556 1
autofs 12164 0 (autoclean) (unused)
ds 8608 2
yenta_socket 12384 2
pcmcia_core 50752 0 [ds yenta_socket]
eepro100 20336 1
ide-scsi 9664 1
scsi_mod 108608 2 [sr_mod ide-scsi]
ide-cd 30272 0
cdrom 32192 0 [sr_mod ide-cd]
nls_iso8859-1 3488 1 (autoclean)
nls_cp437 5120 1 (autoclean)
vfat 12092 1 (autoclean)
fat 37400 0 (autoclean) [vfat]
mousedev 5312 1
hid 21344 0 (unused)
input 5984 0 [mousedev hid]
usb-uhci 24484 0 (unused)
usbcore 73152 1 [hid usb-uhci]
ext3 67136 2
jbd 49400 2 [ext3]

############################################################

Hi Claire,
I have a sony viao pcgfx505 and I think yours has the same sound chip... from my basic knowledge, your modules look ok, but I'm not sure about all that stuff in your modules.conf file.
Your problem might be solved simply by running aumix (or aumixer or something like that) and making sure your output isn't muted.

Yeah...looks fine. You don't get that nastsy error message when you login to KDE (or whatever destop) that /dev/dsp cannot be opened do you?

If you are running KDE then run KMixer and make sure that your master volumes and wave volumes are up.

I guess you're running arts. Have you tried to use alsa?

pcg-nv170 viao here. same sound chip. Mine ONLY works if I compile support into the kernel and not as a module...no idea why. As far as alsa, I've only tried it once and the latest version at the time didn't detect the i810 as a supported device.

On the plus side it looks like your 3d is working/will work if the x config file is set, but then again it looks like your sound is working as well.

Did changing the mixer settings as suggested before help?

The alsa driver for i810_audio is snd-intel8x0.