suse 9.2 sound problems

LucidParody · 02-23-2005, 11:50 AM

I just recently did an FTP install of Suse 9.2. Everything expect my sound is working. When I go into Yast and try to configure my sound, I get the following message:

Quote:

An error occured during the install of
Sound Controller
The Kernal module snd-intel8x0 for sound support could not be loaded. This can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.

I did a little googling and the only relevant suggest I found was changing my /etc/modprobe.d/sound file from snd-intel8x0 to i810_audio from a person who had the exact problem that I had. Unfortunately, that did nothing to solve the problem. Other things people have suggested that I've found is lspci, which gives me:

Quote:

0000:00:02.7 Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] Sound Controller (rev a0)
Subsystem: Elitegroup Computer Systems: Unknown device b732
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 173, IRQ 193
I/O ports at 1400
I/O ports at 1080 [size=128]
Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2

and to alsaconf, which tells me that it has found intel8x0 Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] Sound Controller (rev a0) but when I tell it to configure it and such, it says it's configured and attempts to play using the sound card and acts like it worked perfectly.

Anyone know what I can do?

TIA.

Xian · 02-23-2005, 05:02 PM

Sound can be a tricky issue to resolve. I also use this soundcard (intel8x0) driver and it works fine on SuSE 9.2. However, upon my initial installation I got the same error as you are reporting. I think my problem had to do with another onboard card that came with my box. SuSE has difficultly dealing with more than one card if the one not being used is still referenced in BIOS.

LucidParody · 02-23-2005, 05:25 PM

How do I check to see if that is the situation in my case? When I run alsaconf it does tell me that I have two sound cards. One is the intel8x0 that i mentioned earlier and another is:

legacy Probe legacy ISA (non-PnP) chips

If this is the situation, how do I fix it? How did you fix it?

LucidParody · 02-24-2005, 11:56 PM

*bump*

Xian · 02-25-2005, 12:10 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by LucidParody
One is the intel8x0 that i mentioned earlier and another is: legacy Probe legacy ISA (non-PnP) chips

That's just the default output of the alsaconf command. That is not going to inform you of a conflicting BIOS entry. If you know there is only a single onboard soundcard then your actual driver issue would certainly reside elsewhere.

LucidParody · 02-25-2005, 01:27 PM

Where would I start looking?

BROse · 02-25-2005, 01:49 PM

Reboot, as machine starts-up press delete key(on my box), that will bring up your BIOS then just turn off the on-board sound chip-set, and reboot

LucidParody · 02-25-2005, 02:17 PM

I tried the setup as it was booting, but I couldn't find any options to play with the bios.

after doing some searching, peoplewith similar problems were asked to post the output of lsmod. here's mine. can anyone tell me if they see something wrong?

Code:

Module                  Size  Used by
snd_intel8x0           37028  0
snd_pcm_oss            66728  0
snd_mixer_oss          25216  1 snd_pcm_oss
i810_audio             41620  0
ac97_codec             21772  1 i810_audio
snd_ac97_codec         76640  1 snd_intel8x0
snd_pcm               113284  3 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm_oss,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer              31620  1 snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc         14600  2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
snd                    70532  6 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore              13792  2 i810_audio,snd

qwerty · 02-25-2005, 02:58 PM

Hi, Im having the same problem as you. Ive installed suse 9.2 and everythings working fine....except for the sound. Ive got an onboard VT8233 AC97 audio controller and a SoundBlaster live 5.1. Ive given up getting the soundblaster to work so im concentrating on the AC97. I've deleted the soundblaster from Yast and configured the AC97. Yast adds and configures AC97 fine but the test sound doesn't play anything. Ive done alsaconf which also runs all the way through with no problems but the test sound won't play. Ive use kmixer and alsamixer and made sure the volumes are at full level and that nothing is muted but still nothing plays.
I know its not the sound card thats got the problem because it works perfectly with knoppix and mandrake 10.1

Pls is there anyone that can help? Ive been googling for days but not found any solutions that work.
cheers

Xian · 02-25-2005, 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by qwerty
Pls is there anyone that can help? Ive been googling for days but not found any solutions that work.

I know of this user who was unable to get sound working in their Dell tower with an Audigy card, and so a nice friend mailed them his card, which was known to work as they were both using SuSE as their Linux desktop. Wouldn't you know that when this working card was installed in the other machine it literally wouldn't produce even so much as a chirp. Just nothing but silence.

These sound issues can be extremely tricky. Just as an example, the only way I ever got my SBLive card working with SuSE 9.1 was to switch the analog and digital output feeds from the onboard jacks. So basically I had an analog system being run with sound from a digital output source. And it worked -- go figure. Of course when I wanted to boot into Windows I had to switch them back, since it recognized that the wiring setup was not correct.

The error message mentioned earlier could be correct as well. There might be some invalid IO or IRQ parameters. But that is beyond most people's scope of knowledge as this is not something that is generally adjusted unless you are very familiar with hardware configurations and BIOS settings.

LucidParody · 02-27-2005, 09:18 AM

So basically I'm screwed unless I have some sort of specialized knowledge?

BROse · 02-27-2005, 09:55 AM

I too have a AC97 chip-set, It didn't work sooooo.....Got cheep C-Media (CMI 8738 chip-set) off E-Bay($6.00) install that, tadaa no more trub! The AC97 oscillates at the wrong speed (I think). Hope this helps you to.

Xian · 02-27-2005, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by LucidParody
So basically I'm screwed unless I have some sort of specialized knowledge?

Heck no. My point being that you can have the same card on different machines and you will often find that some of them work while others for a variety of reasons will not. You just have to be persistent and try new things (like the example I gave of using alternative audio jacks), and just be a bit of a detective. I use the same intel8x0 driver so I do know that it will run under SuSE. You just need to try and uncover if the issue is machine related, or has to do with system configs. It might not be a bad idea to load a Knoppix LiveCD and see if it will play under that environment, and then uncover if the same modules are being loaded there as in SuSE. That way you would know for certain what configuration will actually work, and then it would just be a matter of duplicating it on your box. Or you could try to run the system repair module and attempt to determine if the installation was not properly completed.

rpmheadache · 03-24-2005, 08:30 PM

I've got the same problem! same audio (ac97) I'm thinking that if I remove the onboard expansion card for my 5.1 surround sound and just use the 2.0 I will have sound? Maybe. This is a real pisser because I've got over $1,000 in games I use when I boot from bill gates

My audio worked fine under fedora C3! uggghhhhh!!!!!! take the good with the bad I guess. I NEED AWNSERS!!! I changed my whole partitioning sceam and started a fresh because I believed suse 9.2 pro would be the OS which put windows behind me forever!!! DONT LET MY DOWN PEOPLE!!!!

Help me please

neboma · 03-24-2005, 10:45 PM

I have 3 systems - all with onboard AC97 sound. All 3 work perfectly on Suse 9.1 and 9.2. But after reading many threads in several forums about sound problems, a common issue is when users have upgraded the sound system by adding a card. In many Linuxes, the first thing to try is to disable the onboard sound. This in done in the BIOs. Your PC documentation, or the manufacturer website must list the specific key(s) to call up the BIOS. This is done during the initial POST test part of bootup. Usually it is the F10, F8, F1 or ESC key (often you have to press it repeatidly during the bootup). Some systems are very stubborn about displaying the BIOS (which is also referrred to as SETUP). You get a non-GUI type screen, that has sections for changing boot order, running certain tests, and "usually", toggling the sound off/on. Sorry for the long explanation, but that has to be your first option at trying to fix your sound - do your research - the BIOS is accessable.