Asus MB Onboard Sound nForce 430 Dies After Changing Volume Level
 

Motherboard is Asus A8N-VM CSM, on Ubuntu Dapper AMD64 version. Yes, I know Dapper is beta, but seems to better support things like this newer MB. I am fully updated with apt-get dist-upgrade, kernel is 2.6.15-18-amd64-generic.

After lots of trial and error, plus Googling, etc. I found out that the nVidia drivers for the nForce 430 don't work for sound for this Asus MB, as it apparently uses a different chipset for sound than most MBs with nForce430.

The module needed is snd_hda_intel, and doing this makes it work:
sudo rmmod snd_hda_intel
sudo modprobe snd_hda_intel position_fix=1
...if followed by using a mixer to raise the sound levels of the headphone, PCM, front, and Surround settings. Not sure if all are necessary, but setting volume for those four and enabling them works.

I've been using alsamixergui, but other mixers work as well.

However, if I then try to adjust the volume at all, sound dies. I've been doing apt-get remove alsa-base, apt-get install alsa-base, then repeating the steps above, which restores sound.

A little experimentation shows that after reinstalling alsa-base, if I first set the volume for the four items listed above in alsamixergui, then enable them (by clicking on the two symbols above each which represent, I suppose, left and right channels), then sound works.

If I try to enable, then change the volume, it doesn't.

An lspci shows this line:
0000:00:10.1 0403: nVidia Corporation MCP51 High Definition Audio (rev a2)
and no other devices are listed for 10.1 if that has significance.

I see this entry in /var/log/syslog:
Mar 19 00:25:47 katy kernel: [119625.682248] PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:10.1 to 64
...and lots of similar ones in the output of dmesg. But I don't know what, if any, significance to attribute to that.

Anyone have any ideas about this?

Only Fix Found is a Kernel Patch
 

Based on this web page that I found, maybe only a patch that disables surround sound will fix the problem unless the Alsa developers can fix it in a future release.

Since I don't want to have to compile a custom kernel or custom Alsa version every time it is updated, I have elected to install a Sound Blaster Live 24 bit card that I have. This card is also problematic in Linux, but works ok in Ubuntu Dapper if you set right settings in the mixer.

Oh, well, maybe I'll try to write the Alsa developers and/or Asus if I can get some time for it.

no sound from onboard Asus A8N-VM CSM
 

I had a problem with the Asus onboard sound when running a distribution of Debian Linux called KnoppMyth. It is a bundled distro with Mythtv. The current release of KnoppMyth contains version 2.6.15.chw-2 of the Linux kernel.

I found that the ALSA sound drivers version 1.0.11rc5 fixed the problem. You just download all the files from ALSA-PROJECT.ORG site and compile them per the insturctions on the ALSA how-to page.

One crucial bit of info - unmute all the sound channels. ALSA drivers automatically mute the sound channels when they install.

After that, I had sound coming out of the Asus board. Whooo hooo!

I've read on forums that this only fixes the stereo sound, but I have not confirmed that on my system yet.

Eric

A8N-VM CSM problems
 

Glad to report that SUSE Linux 10.1 beta 8 (and probably some other shiny new distributions) solves most of the driver problems for the A8N-VM CSM motherboard. But be sure to get the latest BIOS before bothering to download a 5-CD distro. The original BIOS (0403) was unusable for Linux.

And please throttle down your wget for those big downloads, in everybody's interest. I used "wget -c -o logfile -T 180 --limit-rate=200K --wait 50 --random-wait ftp://some-mirror..../....some.iso" and haven't been kicked off a site yet. Put that in the background and tail the logfile every hour or so.

Torrents didn't work so hot for me.

Back to the main subject: Internet access and video are fine with SUSE 10.1 beta 8.

Sound (the snd_hda_intel driver) worked fine for listening to CDs but as with a previous post in this thread, sound died as soon as I downloaded Real Player 10 (Helix, I guess) and tried to adjust the volume on a video clip. So there's still some work for somebody to do, but I don't need sound at all for what I do day to day.

Incidentally, BSD on the A8N-VM CSM had no problem using the Internet (nor did Windows of course), and it was an old 32-bit BSD. How'd they do that? I didn't even expect a 32-bit OS to load on a 64-bit motherboard. That old BSD not only installed but went to the Internet with an Ethernet chip no other distro (and I tried a half-dozen, not just SUSE) could hack.

For a simple, inexpensive office machine which happens to need the huge RAM and/or file sizes that 64-bits makes possible, saving the cost of a video card, a sound card, and a gigabit NIC plus the already low cost of the A8N-VM CSM board is simply great. Now we can put our money into the important stuff. For me, that's 4 GB of RAM and a medium fast Athlon 64 (for now) mainly for huge high resolution photos in Gimp and Photoshop. A single image can easily exceed 1 GB. I dual boot or triple or quadruple boot all my computers, and either install Windows XP in a FAT32 partition or set up a smallish NTFS partition plus some FAT32 data-only partitions for greatest convenience in sharing data in all directions.

Cheers.