ESS 1868 soundcard issues with Lubuntu
 

I recently installed Lubuntu 13.10 on an old Pentium III with an ESS 1868 Audio Drive (Isa Soundcard). The card works fine in Windows XP but not in Linux.

The modprobe commands did nothing so I added snd_es18xx to /etc/modules however when Lubuntu boots it displays this message:

es18xx unable to assign resources
es18xx PnP configure failure (out of resources?)

So I went into the Bios and disabled "PnP OS" so that the card is configured by the Bios. After that there's no message anymore. However one of two things will happen:

1. As soon as the desktop and the mouse cursor show up a faint cackling sound is heard from the speakers and the entire system freezes.

2. Lubuntu boots successfully. When I move the volume control up and down or click on the mute button faint static can be heard. Aplay -L lists the soundcard as installed. Then I try to play a soundfile or a CD and the entire system freezes again. Once or twice I managed to actually play a CD but it sounded horrible, like Midi music of an old Dos game.


The next thing I tried is turning on "PnP OS" again and disabling the onboard serial and USB ports to free up resources. The results were 100% identical to disabling "PnP OS".

Any ideas what else I could do?

yes but try installing windows xp on that computer, you won't have sound either.

but that's not so important.

please remove all that you added to /etc or anywhere else and try to get the system back to its original state (before you started meddling) and lets go about this logically.

1)
where did you get the idea that copying these files to /etc would help?
maybe there's something good in it.

2)
a quick websearch gives me the impression that even 10 years ago your sound card was somewhat problematic and rare.

3)
please post the output of following terminal commands:
"lsmod"
"lspci"

4)
why on earth did you install 13.10 and not 14.04?

Thanks for your reply.

Windows XP is already installed on that computer with working sound.

1)I read about it in various forums. I'll look if I can still find it in browser history.

2) No idea.

3) I don't have the computer at home but I'll be able to post it on monday.

4) That was a few weeks ago, before 14.04 come out.

I didn't find the original forum posts but this guide is pretty similar.

http://www.pc-freak.net/blog/configu...xubuntu-linux/

This is the output with the snd-es18xx line:

And this without:

i don't know about the bios setting "PnP OS" or what it means.

the link you posted talks about 2 modules.
please test it manually first:these commands probably have to be run with sudo.
and don't forget to turn up hte sliders in alsamixer.
do you get more than a faint crackling? does the system still freeze?
post the output of these commands.

edit: how do you know you have that soundcard?

This way it works a little better. A CD now provides properly sounding music. However after playing for a while the system freezes again.
I can't open alsamixer. I can not find it in the menus and if I type "alsamixer" in the terminal it says it can't find the file or folder. Pulseaudio works though.

That's how Windows calls it. The name "ESS ES1868 Plug and Play AudioDrive" also shows up on the POST screen and when I run dmesg.

aaah, dmesg.

anyhow, the modprobe commands don't return any error or even warning.
you can try to troubleshoot by looking at /var/log/Xorg* log files after the crash/freeze - there's a small problem: the file Xorg.0.log is for the running session, and one of the others is for the previous session, but i don't know which one.

when the freeze occurs, what happens when you press ctrl+alt+F3? do you get to a login terminal, can you login as your normal user?
if yes, type "top" and see what's eating your resources.

you must try to find more info on your setup. i can't lead you through this, i don't have this kind of experience or hardware.

Thanks for helping me this far!



Anyway the system doesn't respond to ctrl+alt+F3.

I found only one other Xorg file (Xorg.0.log.old). Is that it?

Doesn't seem to have anything related to that crash in it.
:confused:

as i said, i don't know.
maybe post both of them!
and tell me about the timeline - like, "the xsession was running for 6 minutes, then the crash/freeze occured while i listened to a cd, and after 2 min i did a hard reset" (pressing power button for 5+ sec). something like that.

incidentally, it seems you installed the proprietary nvidia (graphics) driver, but the system is not using it. it uses nouveau instead. which is totally ok, just a piece of info i managed to glean from your log file.

oh, btw, are you always doing the modprobes manually now or have you added both modules to /etc/(wherewasit), so that they really get loaded at bootup?
you can verify that with "lsmod".
this is crucial information to interpreting the log files.
are the freezes only happening when you actually play sound?

from your previous post with the modprobes i'd say that the modules/drivers get loaded ok (no errors) but they're simply not working properly. maybe they can be configured.

Sorry for not responding sooner, I was busy with other projects.

Here are the logfiles. The freeze occured while playing a CD about 6 minutes after Lubuntu finished booting.

I'm still using the modprobe commands. The freezes are always related to sounds being played.

I tried configuring the soundcard like this:

sudo modprobe snd-es18xx isapnp=0 port=0x220 mpu_port=0x300 irq=7 dma1=0 dma2=1

either using the same resources as in windows or values that worked for other people but dmesg shows the card always defaulting to the same settings. Sometimes it says something like "unable to grap irq 7" but even when it doesn't the resources I assign are totally ignored.