I just got a brand new HP Pavilion 1100, and of course the first thing I did was install the latest FreeBSD 6 beta. Most everything works, except audio. I have the Intel ICH6 onboard audio; it's enabled in the BIOS, but FreeBSD doesn't find it. When you kldload snd_ich, nothing really happens, and cat /dev/sndstat reveals no known audio devices. I also compiled a kernel with sound and snd_ich enabled, but to no avail. My only thought left would be toggling the BIOS option for "PNP Operating System" to "NO", just to see if that would help, but I don't want to screw anything up. Any ideas?

I had the same problem with my Dell Dimension 3000 and 5.4 current. But all I had to do was add snd_ich_load = "YES" to /boot/loader.conf and reboot. Then in the KDE control center under Sound & Multimedia/Sound System make sure the "Enable the mound system" box is ticked and presto...sound! That's my 2 cents.

Hi i have the same pc as your good self and have also done all that you have listed above, i get sound on kde start up. However when i try to play a cd i get no sound at all? have run kmixer, mixer all sound is up. have tried xmms, kscd. noatrun.
any help would be most most welcome!

ps-this only my second day on freebsd

change the permissions on /dev/dsp and /dev/mixer

Thanks for the response, but I have unfortunately found the problem. My sound device simply isn't supported under FreeBSD: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=kern/84311. Oh well; at least I have another computer on which audio does work, since I am not inclined to give up my favorite operating system.

As to trials' question on the CD audio - I have heard that some Dells are wired to only pass digital sound output from the CD drive to the sound card, and not an analog signal. I'm not sure how it all works, but the result is that you can't hear audio CDs on the machine with the default configuration. I used to have that problem myself, but now it all works fine with xmms. I believe what fixed it was checking the "Digital Audio Extraction" box in the xmms CD player plugin config window.

Hi guys thanks for the replys, i selected the "Digital Audio Extraction" box in xmms and i get a box pop up saying this:
"please check:
your sound card is configured properly
you have the correct output plugin selected
no other program is blocking the sound card

any other ideas please? as i am really enjoying freeBSD but want to listen to some tunes

{my eyes are going square}

*check if you are playing two things at the same time
*check if you have selected oss, alsa or something else in the audio preferences of xmms

yep have done all that but still no joy? very very frustrating

Hmmm. I know this is "yes, of course..." but do you have

snd_pcm_load="YES"

in /boot/loader.conf?

Cheers--
Charles

Hi yes i had the correct bootloader.conf

I have managed to get sound working by recompiling my kernel, and re doing the sound. It now works like a charm, although i am unsure why lol

I want to thank you all for your help

ps-now all i have to do is sort out firefox (it continually makes my motherboard beep when using it?????) And try and cut down on the disk usage as i have 10 gig Hdrive and only one gig left in user 7.6 used!!!! is that normal?

Have you been running "make clean" after you build something from Ports? If you don't, that can take up a lot of extra space.

Depends on the software you have been building from ports. I have on this system some 357 pakages built from ports including gnome. My /usr stands at 5gig, but I make sure that my builds are always done with this command line: It is the make clean that does all the heavy cleaning. If you still have space issues, check out /usr/ports/distfiles which is where the downloaded files needed for a ports build get put. If you are sure that you will only build a port once (yeah, right ) then your command line can be something like this: That will delete the source file if the build is successful.

Cheers--
Charles

I don't usually listen to CD's on my PC but I decided to try since you have the same PC as me. Once I changed the premissions on /dev/acd0 KsCD could access the CD player, but no sound. I decided to open up the hood and discovered that there was no audio cable from the CD to the motherboard. Since I had a spare one from an old PC lying around I popped it in and now I have CD audio, if I ever want it, in both Linux and FreeBSD :-)

Taylor, if you would be kind enough would you post exactly what you did to solve your problem? It will help others when they do a search for the same issue.

Cheers--
Charles