Problems with ES1969 - really slow, choppy sound
 

The Rundown (only not as funny as the movie):

IBM Thinkpad 390X
- Pentium III 500Mhz
- 512MB Mushkin PC100 SDRAM
- ESS Solo-1E ES1969 Audiodrive (the culprit)
- Mandrake 9.2
- kernel 2.4.21 - with ALSA 0.9.6

I used to own a Thinkpad 390E - on which I had everything working great. I've since switched over to the 390X, which has virtually identical hardware, with an exception of the audio. I've done a fresh install, and a fresh kernel build, but I have a persistant problem with the audio.

The story goes:

With a fresh install of Mandrake, it detects the audio, and configures the snd-es1938 module for it. Finish install, start up...and the sound if funky. Everything comes through slowly, almost verging on static, and choppy, too. XMMS plays at 1/3 normal speed when I timed it.

When I went looking for the problem, the modules.conf indeed had the correct module...but things didn't seem right. There were none of the aliases that I'm used to finding, but a rather sparse few lines:

******* /etc/modules.conf
probeall scsi_hostadapter ide-scsi
probeall usb-interface usb-uhci
above snd-es1968 snd-pcm-oss
*******

I've since futzed with modules.conf, following the documentation I could find and another topic here on LQ about the ES1969, but to no avail. Here's where things stand:

******* /etc/modules.conf
probeall scsi_hostadapter ide-scsi
#alias sound-slot-0 snd-es1938
probeall usb-interface usb-uhci
above snd-es1968 snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-seq-oss

# ALSA Section
alias char-major-116 snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-es1938
# module options should go here

# OSS/Free section
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 snd-es1938

# card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
above snd-es1938 snd-pcm-oss

alias /dev/dsp snd-es1938
alias /dev/mixer snd-es1938
alias /dev/sequencer snd-es1938

Some more information:

[root@localhost /]# lsmod
Module Size Used by Not tainted
snd-seq-midi 5632 0 (autoclean) (unused)
snd-opl3-synth 13800 0 (autoclean) (unused)
snd-seq-instr 8196 0 (autoclean) [snd-opl3-synth]
snd-seq-midi-emul 7420 0 (autoclean) [snd-opl3-synth]
snd-ainstr-fm 3168 0 (autoclean) [snd-opl3-synth]
snd-seq-oss 36800 0 (unused)
snd-seq-midi-event 6368 0 [snd-seq-midi snd-seq-oss]
snd-seq 48528 2 [snd-seq-midi snd-opl3-synth snd-seq-instr snd-seq-midi-emul snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event]
snd-pcm-oss 46724 0
snd-mixer-oss 15928 0 [snd-pcm-oss]
snd-es1938 16004 1
snd-pcm 87780 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-es1938]
gameport 3380 0 [snd-es1938]
snd-mpu401-uart 5376 0 [snd-es1938]
snd-rawmidi 19360 0 [snd-seq-midi snd-mpu401-uart]
snd-opl3-lib 8932 0 [snd-opl3-synth snd-es1938]
snd-timer 20804 0 [snd-seq snd-pcm snd-opl3-lib]
snd-hwdep 6880 0 [snd-opl3-lib]
snd-seq-device 6184 0 [snd-seq-midi snd-opl3-synth snd-seq-oss snd-seq snd-rawmidi snd-opl3-lib]
snd-page-alloc 9780 0 [snd-es1938 snd-pcm]
snd 45284 1 [snd-seq-midi snd-opl3-synth snd-seq-instr snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-es1938 snd-pcm snd-mpu401-uart snd-rawmidi snd-opl3-lib snd-timer snd-hwdep snd-seq-device]
soundcore 6852 0 [snd]
**************** snip ************************

[root@localhost /]# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 03)
00:02.0 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02)
00:02.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:02.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
00:02.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 02)
00:03.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1251B
00:03.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1251B
00:06.0 Communication controller: Lucent Microelectronics WinModem 56k (rev 01)
00:07.0 Multimedia audio controller: ESS Technology ES1969 Solo-1 Audiodrive (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Neomagic Corporation NM2200 [MagicGraph 256AV] (rev 20)


The ES1969 gets assigned IRQ 5. It's a PCI soundcard, so (to my understanding) there is no DMA to assign to it.

Still more info:

[root@localhost proc]# cat ioports
0000-001f : dma1
0020-003f : pic1
0040-005f : timer
0060-006f : keyboard
0070-007f : rtc
0080-008f : dma page reg
00a0-00bf : pic2
00c0-00df : dma2
00f0-00ff : fpu
0100-013f : prism2_cs
0170-0177 : ide1
01f0-01f7 : ide0
0376-0376 : ide1
03bc-03be : parport0
03c0-03df : vga+
03f6-03f6 : ide0
03f8-03ff : serial(auto)
0cf8-0cff : PCI conf1
1000-103f : Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI
1040-105f : Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI
1060-107f : Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB
1060-107f : usb-uhci
1080-10bf : ESS Technology ES1969 Solo-1 Audiodrive
1080-1087 : ESS Solo-1
10c0-10cf : Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE
10c0-10c7 : ide0
10c8-10cf : ide1
10d0-10df : ESS Technology ES1969 Solo-1 Audiodrive
10d0-10df : ESS Solo-1 VC (DMA)
10e0-10ef : ESS Technology ES1969 Solo-1 Audiodrive
10e0-10ef : ESS Solo-1 SB
10f0-10f7 : Lucent Microelectronics WinModem 56k
10f8-10fb : ESS Technology ES1969 Solo-1 Audiodrive
10f8-10fb : ESS Solo-1 GAME
10fc-10ff : ESS Technology ES1969 Solo-1 Audiodrive
10fc-10ff : ESS Solo-1 MIDI
1400-14ff : Lucent Microelectronics WinModem 56k
4000-40ff : PCI CardBus #02
4400-44ff : PCI CardBus #02
4800-48ff : PCI CardBus #06
4c00-4cff : PCI CardBus #06

I have the same issue, but accidentally placed a new thread on the subject, see the post "ES1969 sound card issues on IBM 390X Thinkpad." I'd welcome any suggestions, as I'm fairly new to the hardware-issue-scene in Linux.

What does dmesg show. Does it have information about the setting the sound card clock.

You can change the clock yourself but I do not know how fast the sound card can be clocked. If you type "/sbin/modinfo snd-es1968", you should see a few options that you can set. To use these options. In /etc/modules.conf add "options snd-es1968 clock=0". When linux boots, the module snd-es1968 will try to detect and try to figure out the clock. The information might show dmesg. If you want to use more options just keep adding the parm that you see with modinfo on the same line as the "options snd-es1968" follow by a space.

You can also e-mail IBM, they might help you.

To add more confusion to the mix, the Thinkpad 390X has a es1946 sound chip, which detects as a es1969, but uses module snd-es1938.

The snd-es1938 module has the following from modinfo:

[root@localhost tom]# modinfo snd-es1938
author: Jaromir Koutek <miri@punknet.cz>
description: ESS Solo-1
license: GPL
parm: index:Index value for ESS Solo-1 soundcard.
parm: id:ID string for ESS Solo-1 soundcard.
parm: enable:Enable ESS Solo-1 soundcard.
vermagic: 2.6.3-7mdk 586
depends: snd-pcm,snd-opl3-lib,gameport,snd-mpu401-uart,snd,snd-page-alloc
alias: pci:v0000125Dd00001969sv*sd*bc*sc*i

The only thing dmesg has as far as sound:
PCI: Found IRQ 5 for device 0000:00:07.0

My compy finds it...
 

Hey all,

On boot up, linux does detect my sound card properly. dmesg confirms this. I don't recall exactly the format in which the information is presented to me, but it does find the card and IDs it as an es1969. I checked the info of the module for it, and it's installed as an es1938. This is all fine and good, and I think this is the same setup as I had before, when my sound worked.

Yes ladies and gents, my sound did work. Then I installed a 12 gig hard drive into my 390X and updated my BIOS to the latest issued from IBM (v. 0.55). Then it all went to heck from there.

One a lighter note, if I maintain the sound card's sound issues, it'll make for one creepy sounding computer next Halloween (all those harsh static noises, etc.).

:P

Did you try calling or e-mail IBM. They might have some suggestions.

Thinkpad 390x ES1969 Sound FIX
 

Hey guys,

I've discovered why the sound runs so poorly on the IBM Thinkpad 390x, using the ES1969 sound card. By default, the BIOS controls the PCI bus power management, which is not suported properly by Linux and possibly the snd-es1938 module (the module for the es1969 is the snd-es1938).

To correct this issue, go into the laptop's BIOS (hit F1 when you see the initial IBM Thinkpad logo), select "Advanced Setup" from the list, then select "Power." In the new list that comes up, locate "PCI bus power management." Select DISABLE from the options for this selection. Reboot the computer, and try out your sound. If it still doesn't work, ensure you have the proper module installed (if you were like me, you might have tried out other sound card modules while experimenting for a fix.)

That's it... my ES1969 sound card works perfectly in Linux (though I have not yet tried recording)!

Later,

bburgy

Heh heh,

Oh, yeah, don't forget to save your changes :P

This is brilliant! Cheers.