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I have just installed OpenSuse 10.1 on my Asrock 939Dual-VSTA motherboard (ASRock 939DUAL-VSTA ATX S939 ULI M1695 DDR AGP PCI-E16 3PCI SATA RAID Sound LAN Motherboard)
Everything works fine, including the integrated sound card but Kmix does not properly recognize the channels and I cannot control volume levels with it or any other type of mixer apps.
The only way I can control volume is from the volume controls in software like Kaffeine, Xine, Amarok or the like.
This card is described as a: C-Media CM6501 7.1 channel audio compliant with UAA architecture on the Asrock website.This model of audio chipset is not documented anywhere. Not even on the C-Media website.
Suse, and any other kind of distro I know, have no known drivers for this audio device.
What is funny is that OpenSuse 10.1 sees it in Yast as :M5455 PCI AC-LINK audio controller but when I try to "edit" the settings it simply closes the window down.
I could not find the device on the PCI BUS with the LSPCI command but I found it on the Universal Serial Bus with LSUSB as a C-Media Eletronics PnP Audio Device.
I have tried deleting the device in Yast and rebooting with no results.Everything comes back the same.
Anybody have any ideas on how I could get Kmix to recognize it properly or a substitute solution or how I could install drivers which settings I could control a bit more?
Keep in mind volume control does work inside applications and audio players but only the "master" or "PCM" channels. I have no control over anything else like microphone or others. In essence the sound works but I have very little control over it.
There is very little on this on the Web from my research. This board is fairly new and the only one which gives PCIE 1x, PCIE 16x and an AGP 8x slot on the same board, plus socket 939 and AM2 compatibility. I had the previous version of this board (ASRock 939DUAL-SATA2) and I did not have this issue with same OS. I had to RMA after it gave out and obtained this new version, which is almost identical except for some details, like the integrated audio chip probably.
Any help would be appreciated. I usually find and fix things by myself, but now I hame at a loss...I am pretty sure it has to do with the device being on the USB bus, but how do I access it's channels?
Distribution: Mandriva mostly, vector 5.1, tried many.Suse gone from HD because bad Novell/Zinblows agreement
Posts: 1,606
Rep:
Hi there,
This motherboard was going to be my choice as my A7N8X-E deluxe died.
(was looking for some socket 939, supporting dual core, with agp, and pci-e, not many around)
I am put off for now because of the sound
Distribution: Mandriva mostly, vector 5.1, tried many.Suse gone from HD because bad Novell/Zinblows agreement
Posts: 1,606
Rep:
Quote:
you will see it is just a kmix problem
I understand that; the fact it is on the USb bus makes it unusual I suppose.
I will have a think about it. At least if I get it I will know there are other users
For completness, and I think you know more than me on linux (seeing other posts),
I suppose you tried aumix and alscontl as well?
Aumix or alsamixer command line utilities make no difference, except they describe the detected sound card as an "PNP audio device" "USB Mixer", but the controls are not right and change nothing.
I figure a driver will be implemented soon for this board as it is becoming very popular. For now the sound works very well just the same. It's simply controlled a bit differently since Kmix seems not well suited to handle it for now, but Amarok VLC,Xine or Kaffeine volume controls work perfeclty fine.
Well For sure it is popular, but that does not mean the company will keep manufactuing and selling it at all.
You know how these thing work, it's like tv shows and ratings. Very popular shows get cancelled for so many stupid studio production reasons, hahahaha!
For now, I will install another sound card on a PCI slot just to see if kmix will work. I'll post back later
I installed a good old PCI Aopen CMI8738 soundcard and deactivated onboard sound for now. Sound is now functionning perfeclty and mixer applications work perfect also now.
I'll just have to wait for UAA USB Audio specs to be supported in kernel a lot better and in mixers.
Distribution: Mandriva mostly, vector 5.1, tried many.Suse gone from HD because bad Novell/Zinblows agreement
Posts: 1,606
Rep:
Hi Steel_J
I could not get hold of the mobo after all (nor the cpu actually, no stock).
The mobo is discontinued, and my supplier is really struggling.
Do you mind me asking
What was your second best choice/alternative mobo? (if you had any)
My requirement were roughly
ATX Mobo for AMD 64 x2 with some average to good potential for overclocking
Price like yours so ~45£ (but will go up to 60-70£ for it to be more linux compatible)
2 sata version I connectors (linux supported sata like sil 3112A)
1 USB header to connect with front of PC
Sound 5, 6, 8 channels do not care, provided it is alsa supported and about decent
(I heard some people saying one chip was "rubish", do not know which one anymore
Out of the box linux supported NIC card 1Gb on its own, or 2 NICs 100+1000 Mb
(I know most nics are, but some need downloading a driver. I do not mind
a reversed engineered nic driver)
Nice to have firewire
Keep my old 2x 512 Mb pc3200
Keep my AGP card (radeon 9250), I will be unhappy if I have to go
for a PCI-E graphic card, but with no choice I will get one
(ATI very preferentially because of open source attitude)
So this excludes
2d hand (I want the 3yr guarentee)
AM2 socket, I am not going to buy DDR2
intel (unless there is a super special offer in the UK for a core 2 duo + mobo)
Wanted to buy from the challenger to keep competition going
Was keen on Nforce4 chipset: people seems to rave about it
K8N SLI ? is that the alternative, do not care about SLI
Hummm. I dont't fancy MSI products usually, but the K8N does not seem to have AGP.
These types of MBoard are quite rare unfotunately. The only other one I know of is the: Biostar Motherboard NF4UL-A9, nForce 4 Ultra, Socket 939, PCI-E & AGP 8x. But it also has been discontinued.
There is also the : ECS 915P-A Motherboard but it is Intel for Pentium socket LGA775 :-(, but has PCIe and AGP 8x.
But beware their AGP slot is proprietary technology and not the AGP standard. They call it XGP and it only support a limited number of AGP cards.
The industry seems to make pressures so that PCIe becomes the standard. GPU company won't be manufacturing AGP cards anymore and PCIe card are becoming cheaper and cheaper because more higher end models come out every month almost.
So you may want to consider making the jump to PCIe right now.
My Asrock motherboard was the best of both worlds. The first version I had died and the new one I obtained after RMA works like a charm, but if it dies I will not get one like that again I should think so I will be forced to go with PCIe too.
Let's hope it last for a few years hey! Héhéhé! I read that the southbridge on my board heat's up quite a bit under heavy workload and causes the board to die. After monitoring temperatures I must agree, so I will soon install a custom fan on it to keep it cool and make sure my investment last.
Asrock is a division of ASUS. Asus as become my prefered choice of motherboards from experiences with them. They are pretty compatible with linux out of the box.
I recommend you go for something like the ASUS A8N-E Motherboard ATX S939 NFORCE4 Ultra or similar. It has pretty much everything you listed as requirements except the AGP slot and more. The sound chipset is Realtek and very Linux friendly and the LAN is Gigabit from the Nforce4 chipset. Look for linux reviews on it on Google or from one of it's brethren.
You should find one that suits you and in your price range.
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