Hello, I tried putting a PCI SoundBlaster Audigy Value Edition (seen by mandriva2006/64bit as "SB Audigy LS") but it only outputs a jarring noise.

I tried with these 2 drivers that come with the distro: snd-ca0106 (default) and snd-audigyls. I get the mixer but the output is noise.

Is it because the distro is the 64bit version? maybe the driver or card is 32-bit only I don't know. My motherboard/cpu is Asus A8N5X/AMD Athlon 64 3200+. I disabled the onboard audio too (which doesnt work either anyways).

In case I made a bad purchase can you tell me which sound card works for Mandriva 2006 64-bit? I dont need anything fancy.

Thx.

Drivers beginning with snd are ALSA drivers so there should be a 64 bit version too. 64 bit OSes are still buggier than 32 bit OSes because still a lot of of people are using 32 bit. You can put a 32 bit OS to a 64 bit machine.
Anyway check hcl.mandriva.com for your soundcard. Note that this only shows if there is someone else using it and not that it's not working.

My regular Audigy works fine with the Debian AMD64 port the old SB Live 5.1 I had in before that worked well too, you may want to consider getting a used one of these they use the emu10k1 driver which from what I have experienced works great.

Ok I gave up on the audigy value and bought a "Sound Blaster 5.1".

It doesnt say Live! anywhere but Mandriva recognizes it as a "SB Live! value" card, while alsamixer says its a "Dell Sound Blaster Live!".

It worked without any configuration.

However, the card's max volume isn't very high and the sound becomes jarred and noisy at anything higher than moderate levels, especially for bass sounds. At low volume it sounds fine though.

I tried fiddling with the mixer but no success, any tips? the driver is alsa's snd-emu10k1x.

Try lowering the master and pcm values using alsamixer run as normal user to about 75 to 80% then using the normal volume control to raise/lower.

Problem solved (at least playback, havent tried using the microphone yet). I installed Mandriva 2006 Power Pack and the Audigy Value now works excellently. The driver and system are the same so who knows what was the problem?

As a matter of fact I also found a SoundBlaster live 5.1 Platinum 1394 and installed it alongside the audigy. The box contained a lot of stuff but I only took the SoundBlaster 5.1 Live card and installed it on Windows XP.

Tried what you said about not maxing one volume setting to avoid jarring but only at low volumes does the card perform well.

This one does have an emu10k1 chip.

Sadly, it presents the exact same problem as the SoundBlaster 5.1 does in linux. The sound is jarred after a not very high volume. So I guess it's the cards fault.

Now, can someone tell me how to disable one sound card while preserving the other?