I hope this is the right thread, certainly though I am a Newbie.

I'm using Fedora Core 3 and am suffering from bad sound quality (it sounds like a badly tuned radio broadcast). I have my sound card configured correctly, and the speakers are fine under Windows 98, any ideas as to what might be up?


As a note:

I know to begin (after install) the sound seemed okay, might it have something to do with my altered hosts file? I didn't deliberately change the file, but on configuring an internet conection this seemed to be a consequence. Anyway, the point is that in invoking this change I get a message about GNOMEs operation, and how it may be jepardised because of the hosts file, hence, this may have something to do with my sound problems.

Seems like i've used to many words to describe my prediciment, but nevermind. Hope someone can help.

NirvanaII

Your sound will not be affected by your hosts file as this is just a way to ease name resolution within a small home based LAN. If you could post some outputs that would help and some more info like what type of soundcard maybe what chipset. And these outputs
lsmod
lspci
and maybe some error messages, I am not a guru but I believe these all help in troubleshooting.

Hi,

Sorry I really am a newbie. When you say outputs, where can I obtain these? Are lsmod and lspci terminal commands that provide these output? (i'm using Windows at the moment so will give them later if so)

My (windows) installation CD is for a Sound Blaster AudioPCI128 soundcard, and there are no error messages, just not very good sound. I think I use a driver by ALSA (being a Fedora Core user.)

Sorry to be so flakey.

NirvanaII

Yes those are terminal commands. They will produce outputs showing what modules are loaded at the moment and what devices are plugged into pci slots. Sorry, but I have to ask have you ran alsaconf and or maybe just alsamixer?

No, i've not run either of those programmes, but I wasn't aware of them. I'll run those commands in a while, just going to get Linux up and running first.

NirvanaII

Okay, here are the results.

# lsmod

Module Size Used by
ppp_deflate 5697 0
zlib_deflate 20697 1 ppp_deflate
ppp_async 11585 1
crc_ccitt 2113 1 ppp_async
ppp_generic 35669 6 ppp_deflate,ppp_async
slhc 7105 1 ppp_generic
parport_pc 24705 1
lp 11565 0
parport 41737 2 parport_pc,lp
autofs4 24005 0
i2c_dev 10433 0
i2c_core 22081 1 i2c_dev
sunrpc 160421 1
ipt_REJECT 6465 1
ipt_state 1857 1
ip_conntrack 40693 1 ipt_state
iptable_filter 2753 1
ip_tables 16193 3 ipt_REJECT,ipt_state,iptable_filter
md5 4033 1
ipv6 232577 10
uhci_hcd 31449 0
snd_ens1371 27557 2
snd_rawmidi 26725 1 snd_ens1371
snd_seq_device 8137 1 snd_rawmidi
snd_pcm_oss 47609 0
snd_mixer_oss 17217 2 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 97993 2 snd_ens1371,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer 29765 1 snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc 9673 1 snd_pcm
snd_ac97_codec 64401 1 snd_ens1371
snd 54053 10 snd_ens1371,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_ac97_codec
soundcore 9889 2 snd
gameport 4801 1 snd_ens1371
floppy 58609 0
dm_snapshot 17029 0
dm_zero 2369 0
dm_mirror 23341 2
ext3 116809 2
jbd 74969 1 ext3
dm_mod 54741 6 dm_snapshot,dm_zero,dm_mirror

# 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 ISA 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)
00:10.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq 5880 AudioPCI (rev 02)
00:14.0 Communication controller: Motorola: Unknown device 5608
01:01.0 VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc. Trio 64 3D (rev 01)

I don't have much idea of what i'm looking for in terms of modules (nor what they are), but I guess this is the part were interested in from the lspci:

00:10.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq 5880 AudioPCI (rev 02)

The second command shows all the pci socket connections as Linux identifies them then... that's an interesting command to know.

What now?

Thanks,

NirvanaII