I can't seem to get any sound working at all with my Sound Blaster pci128 Digital on Mandrake 10.1. Can anyone help me out as I am quite clueless on how to make it work. (My first attempt at linux. )

lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8377 [KT400/KT600 AGP] Host Bridge (rev 80)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 PCI Bridge
00:09.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq 5880 AudioPCI (rev 04)
00:0f.0 RAID bus controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VIA VT6420 SATA RAID Controller (rev 80)
00:0f.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
00:10.4 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 86)
00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 ISA bridge [K8T800 South]
00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 60)
00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 78)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5200] (rev a1)

hope someone can help me out, thanks!

i've looked all around the forum and can't find a single post for my situation. someone must have been in my situation before, what can i do?

Well it depends - what is your situation. You're using Mandrake, you have a particular sound card and you don't get sound. You haven't given enough information to go on yet.

So do you have speakers plugged in? Do you have the volume turned up in the mixer (go to 'multimedia' in the KDE Menu, or run alsamixer from a terminal.) Are there sound modules loaded (run lsmod and see if soundcore and any snd-* modules are loaded).

Daniel

Sorry, I didn't know what info to give to help this problem.

"lsmod" gives me:
bash: lsmod: command not found

alsamixer reports that the sound IS on

????????????????????[AlsaMixer v1.0.6 (Press Escape to quit)]???????????????????
? Card: VIA 823x rev60 ?
? Chip: Realtek ALC655 rev 0 ?
? Item: Master ?
? ?
? ------ ?
? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
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? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?
? 77<>77 77 77<>77 77<>77 77 77 77<>77 ?
? < Master >Master M PCM Surround Center LFE Line Line-In ?
? ?
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????


the speakers are plugged in

i dunno, what else?

Plzz login as root or su to root before running lsmod.
When you say sound does not work, what do you mean?
It pretends like working but gives no sound, or it gives some error message or whatever.
Plzz be more specific.

Have you got an onboard sound card(builtin motherboard)? Looks like alsa is using the builtin via ac97 codec instead of your creative?

Sorry again, I use amaroK and it says it is playing but there is no sound coming out of the speakers.

Ok, after logging in as root, "lsmod" gave me this:

Module Size Used by
md5 3584 1
ipv6 230916 8
rfcomm 32348 0
l2cap 19876 5 rfcomm
bluetooth 39076 4 rfcomm,l2cap
snd-seq-oss 31232 0
snd-seq-midi-event 6080 1 snd-seq-oss
snd-seq 47440 4 snd-seq-oss,snd-seq-midi-event
snd-pcm-oss 49480 0
snd-mixer-oss 17376 1 snd-pcm-oss
snd-via82xx 22372 1
snd-ac97-codec 69392 1 snd-via82xx
snd-pcm 81800 2 snd-pcm-oss,snd-via82xx
snd-timer 20356 2 snd-seq,snd-pcm
snd-page-alloc 7400 2 snd-via82xx,snd-pcm
gameport 3328 1 snd-via82xx
snd-mpu401-uart 5856 1 snd-via82xx
snd-rawmidi 19300 1 snd-mpu401-uart
snd-seq-device 6344 3 snd-seq-oss,snd-seq,snd-rawmidi
snd 45988 13 snd-seq-oss,snd-seq,snd-pcm-oss,snd-mixer-oss,snd-via82xx,snd-ac97-codec,snd-pcm,snd-timer,snd-mpu401-uart,snd-rawmidi,snd-seq-device
r,snd-mpu401-uart,snd-rawmidi,snd-seq-device
soundcore 7008 1 snd
ppp_synctty 7744 0
ppp_async 8896 1
crc-ccitt 1664 1 ppp_async
ppp_generic 24468 6 ppp_synctty,ppp_async
slhc 6112 1 ppp_generic
af_packet 16072 4
floppy 55088 0
via-rhine 17572 0
mii 4224 1 via-rhine
ide-cd 37280 0
cdrom 37724 1 ide-cd
loop 12520 0
nls_iso8859-1 3680 1
ntfs 147964 1
supermount 34804 1
via-agp 7360 1
agpgart 27752 1 via-agp
sata_via 4836 0
libata 38308 1 sata_via
scsi_mod 104044 1 libata
ehci-hcd 26244 0
uhci-hcd 28752 0
usbcore 103172 4 ehci-hcd,uhci-hcd
ext3 120680 1
jbd 49080 1 ext3

Yes I do have an onboard sound card, how do I turn it off so I can just use my soundblaster card?

Hmm, looks like your creative card is not being used at all.
Yes disable the onboard audio. You can do that from BIOS setup, probably "Integrated Peripheral Setup" or something similar disable it from there. See you motherboard manual.

After you've done that, reboot and then run alsaconf again and It should surely work. Post back if you need further help.

Also, after you see this reply, plzz run "modinfo ens-1371" and post the output here.

Check that your volume control isn't set to 0 or muted. In KDE, run 'kmix', from the console, try 'alsamixer'. When I last used Mandrake 10, my default installation gave me a working, but muted, soundcard. Check Master, PCM, & CD.
Save the volume afterwards from the console: as root, run 'alsactl store'.

Having said this, your alsamixer does seem to be using onboard audio in preference to the SB128.

hmmm, evil, not sure if you meant "snd-ens1371" or "es1371". both are here:

"modinfo snd-ens1371"

filename: /lib/modules/2.6.8.1-12mdk/kernel/sound/pci/snd-ens1371.ko.gz
author: Jaroslav Kysela <perex@suse.cz>, Thomas Sailer <sailer@ife.ee.ethz.ch>
license: GPL
description: Ensoniq/Creative AudioPCI ES1371+
parm: index:Index value for Ensoniq AudioPCI soundcard.
parm: id:ID string for Ensoniq AudioPCI soundcard.
parm: enable:Enable Ensoniq AudioPCI soundcard.
parm: joystick_port:Joystick port address.
vermagic: 2.6.8.1-12mdk 686 gcc-3.4
depends: snd-pcm,gameport,snd-rawmidi,snd,snd-ac97-codec
alias: pci:v00001274d00001371sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00001274d00005880sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00001102d00008938sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

"modinfo es1371"

filename: /lib/modules/2.6.8.1-12mdk/kernel/sound/oss/es1371.ko.gz
parm: spdif:if 1 the output is in S/PDIF digital mode
parm: nomix:if 1 no analog audio is mixed to the digital output
parm: amplifier:Set to 1 if the machine needs the amp control enabling (many laptops)
author: Thomas M. Sailer, sailer@ife.ee.ethz.ch, hb9jnx@hb9w.che.eu
description: ES1371 AudioPCI97 Driver
license: GPL
vermagic: 2.6.8.1-12mdk 686 gcc-3.4
depends: gameport,ac97_codec,soundcore
alias: pci:v00001274d00001371sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00001274d00005880sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00001102d00008938sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

I managed to get the sound working with the onboard audio (plugged the speaker into it, duh..... me stupid).
I'll try disabling the onboard audio then, the AC97 right?

Thanks for the help so far.

ok now i got new problems:
after disabling the AC97 onboard audio, i ran alsaconf again and it worked its magic, told me to "have fun!". well im not having fun, grrrr.

the outputs for the following commands:

"alsamixer"
alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such device

"kmix"
QPixmap: Cannot create a QPixmap when no GUI is being used
QPixmap: Cannot create a QPixmap when no GUI is being used
QPixmap: Cannot create a QPixmap when no GUI is being used
QPixmap: Cannot create a QPixmap when no GUI is being used
kbuildsycoca running...
kmix: ERROR: Alsa mixer cannot be found.
Please check that the soundcard is installed and the
soundcard driver is loaded.
kmix:
kmix: ERROR: Alsa mixer cannot be found.
Please check that the soundcard is installed and the
soundcard driver is loaded.
kmix:
kmix: ERROR: Alsa mixer cannot be found.
Please check that the soundcard is installed and the
soundcard driver is loaded.
kmix:
kmix: ERROR: Alsa mixer cannot be found.
Please check that the soundcard is installed and the
soundcard driver is loaded.
kmix:

right, and the sound is not working. no error messages, except this one which pops up a little while after typing "kmix" and having amaroK running:

Mutex destroy failure: Device or resource busy
ICE default IO error handler doing an exit(), pid = 16726, errno = 0

It comes up in the konsole window

Maybe you have a similar problem to what I had a little while ago.

Rerun 'lsmod' as root, and see if the various snd-* modules are loaded.

If they aren't then run 'modprobe snd-ens1371' as root and tell us what the error message is.

My issue was to do with IRQ conflicts - moving my soundcard to a different slot inside the PC fixed things.

Daniel

install the alsa tools as well,
kmix won't work unless there is alsamixer

Ah well the sound started working after I did this:

- Disabled AC97 Onboard audio
- Rebooted and ran alsaconf
- posted about it, complaining that it didn't work
- rebooted again, ran kmix, turned up the volume, ran amaroK and like magic: "early in the mornin', rise into the street.........................................YES!, music to my ears!"

thanks to all that helped me out. btw, if u haven't listened to sublime, you should. old, but awesome.