howdy,

I installed mandrake 9.0 yesterday, and its fantastic. I'm having a few problems though. My main problem is my sound, it doesn't work! I have onboard VIA AC97 sound (5.1 channel), and mandrake has installed the correct driver for it. However whenever I startup an audio application I get an error message saying the sound server isn't working (or something to that effect).

Any ideas?

cheers

Hi skip1,
(No point in opening the same thread twice)

I'm having the same problem with the same onboard sound card in Red Hat 8

The soundcard is detected properly but the test sound will not play.
Vendor: Via Tech
Model: VT8233 AC97
Module: via82cxxx_audio

This is the error message at boot up -
Sound server informational message
Error while initializing the sound driver
Device /dev/dsp can't be opened ( No such device )

When system is shutting down it displays a cannot locate module sound message for about 2 seconds, not long enough for me to get any more info from the message.

What type of AC'97 chip is it?

All AC97 chips are not the exact same. Example, mine is a ALC650, and my son and daughter both have a VIA VT1612A. To get the 6-channels working in the alc650, I went to the realtek website and downloaded the alsa drivers from them with their instructions. I can't control my 3d depth with aumix or kmix, but alsamixer has all of the controls.

my AC'97 chip is an ALC650 6-channel audio.

I've heard people talk about the ALSA drivers, I'll try downloading from them and I'll let you know what happens.

the url is :

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/...&Software=True


Good luck

hey,

just got back from work and fiddled with mandrake. the sound appears to work when logged in as root, but not as jamie (the account i want to use). I've checked all the permissions and stuff, but i am still not sure whats going on.
when logged in as jamie XMMS will also often crash, but not when im root.

Hmmm?!!!!

i got some problem if you get solution send reply

if it only plays with root, try
chmod 777 /dev/mixer

Good luck
Figa

Oh, I'm not really sure, but if the above doesn't work, then maybe you'll need to do:

cmod +777 /dev/audio

Not really sure. I haven't done this in a while.

Just trying to help
Figa

It seems to be a recurring theme, because i'm suffering from the same problems too....

my sound plays through xine (when its the drivers aren't causing crashes), and sometimes through xmms - regardless whether i'm root or not. the only noise it plays is a quick crackle just to startle the crap out of me.

i tried installing ALSA, but not being a particularly experienced user, it kept coming up with problems during the ./Configure and 'make file' stages

and i really would like to play some sounds...

anyone who can help, please do!!!

cheers

I had the same issues with a recent Slackware 8.1 install. The 'chmod 666 /dev/dsp*' command issued as root eliminated the error message upon reboot, but I'm not sure I have sound yet.

Will let you know.

I have a clue what it may be. I have a weird chipset and I think it doesn't go well with gnome, which is the GUI i use. Also my CD RW and DVD drive don't work. I think I have a hardware problem, not software. I've tried mandrake on another intel machine (not amd), and all worked fine.

if u have similar problems or want to know more, then check out my posts (by skip1) at www.mandrakeusers.org and www.gnomedesktop.org

thanx for all your replies.