not to be annoying but:

i've tried several different mixers
looked for conflicts and stuff
checked and rechecked modules

what in the world is going on here? also is /dev/dsp the sound device?

yes it is.

Have you tried alsa?
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/2826/3/

well i COULD try alsa but the sound worked fine without it before in slack 8.1. plus i think im very close to my answer, i mean everything seems perfect, only no sounds.

what should the permissions for /dev/dsp be?

By everything you've posted, it sounds like you have a device conflict of some sort. Perhaps memory or an IRQ (Interrupt) conflict between your sound card and another device. To start with, make sure the Plug and Play OS setting in your BIOS is set to no.

it was set to no.

irq conflict eh,

well.... look at my lspci -vv result which i posted. several devices have "Pin A routed to IRQ 11"...is that bad?

That's interesting. This is a fairly sticky problem. What leads me to believe it is not just some setting you are missing (like having sound turned off in KDE or something like that) is that you said that also when you try to install your sound card in NT, it refuses to boot. Does it Blue Screen on boot with a core dump? That would be consistent with a conflict.

Normally, the only way you're likely to have a conflict with a newer motherboard is if one of the devices is ISA rather than PCI or if the BIOS has Plug and Play OS set to yes, and it's not a Plug and Play OS (as neither NT nor Linux really is). Since you have Plug and Play OS set to no, your BIOS really should take care of conflicts between PCI devices (and even some ISA devices).

The possibilities would seem to be as follows:

1. There is something actually wrong with your sound card, and it is not responding correctly to its instructions. The best way to test this would be to try the sound card in another computer. Of course the solution to this would be a new sound card.

2. Your motherboard or BIOS is quirky, and is not handling the setup of your peripherals correctly. This could be for a reason as simple as the slot one of them happens to be in. A possible solution would be to move one of them to another slot and try again. Another way to test this would be to check all the peripherals for correct operation in another computer.

3. Some quirk exists among the peripherals where one doesn't accept the settings from the motherboard, or two of them refuse to work on the same bus.

Your lspci output is a little strange because of how many devices seem to be on IRQ 11. You can get away with shared IRQs under some circumstances, but this seems a little extreme. I would normally not expect a sound card and a network card to ever share an IRQ, as seems to be the case here. Then your video is on the same IRQ as well? I don't think I've seen anything like that before. PCI devices are supposed to be able to use IRQs up to 30, isn't it? Why would they all be on the same one? A typical IRQ setting for a sound card is 5 (although 11 isn't really strange by itself). If there is some parameter you could pass the driver to tell it to set the IRQ to 5 that might help you. However, PCI devices don't normally need to be set manually, so their drivers would not normally need the ability to take an IRQ parameter.

Let us know if you find out anything more, or if anything that I wrote set you on the track of a solution.

Thx for the reply

When i try to install it in NT the computer will restart normally after the install and when it reboots the booting will stop on the blue screen (which normally appears but is supposed to go away). That is the blue screen which just says Windows NT Sp6 blah blah 128mb memory. Instead of continuing after this screen it just stops booting at this point


As for the solutions:


1. I cannot remove the sound card since it is built into the motherboard...i dont know what could have caused it to stop working in both NT and linux.


2. All the other peripherals work correctly. Since i cannot move the sound card around, you think i should maybe move my network card or ultra ata adapter??


3. Same as #2, move around the pci peripherals?

Next:
I agree that it is strange for all these IRQ 11's but all the other hardware works, the net card, the gfx card... Only the sound wont wont wont play.



will update in a few hours when i get back home.

I think Rodrin's post is probably on the ball.
It is certainly strange that so many devices are competing for the same irq.
You may find that your motherboard manual gives advice on whether a change of pci slot makes a difference, and some boards allow you to specify an irq for a specific slot.

Also worth checking for a bios update from your mobo manufacturer.

Another alternative could be to disable the onboard sound in the bios and treat yourself to a new sound card - an oem soundblaster is pretty cheap these days, and you would get better sound.

well i dont wanna buy a new sound card when i dont have to....so i think that ill keep on trying.

my motherboard allows me to assign an IRQ for a specific slot. Like i said the sound is built into the motherboard.

i dunno, it looks like im getting close, but still no go...what should i do? change the IRQ for my network card, move the graphics card, im a bit confused...

It is true that integrated peripherals are more likely to share IRQs than separate devices are (although I still have never seen video and sound intentionally on the same IRQ). For example, on my laptop the video, usb, and pcmcia bus all share the same IRQ, and are all integrated on the mainboard. By what you have posted, however, it would seem that neither your video nor your network card are integrated on your motherboard. I would go ahead with perhaps trying the network card in another slot. I would assume your video is AGP, so moving it to another slot would be impossible. However, can you change the IRQ for your sound chipset or your AGP slot with BIOS settings?

If none of these things help you, it's always possible that your sound chipset is toast. I don't want to seem discouraging, but I've seen integrated sound chipsets go bad more often than any other kind of sound card.

Does the sound currently work elsewhere (ie are you dual booting?). If not ... and this one really flumoxed me, try checking the BIOS sound settings ... after Slack 9 install somehow my BIOS sound setting had been turned off. It now seems to be stable with the sound setting at auto and with the midi controller switched off (midi still works). I'm pretty n00b-ish but this got me going.

pbhj

thx for replies...

only the sound is integrated. net card is PCMCIA/PCI aka PLX
the gfx card is an AGP.

i can ONLY change the IRQ of the cards in the PCI slots.

pbhj: like i said above the sound does not work in windows NT. i checked the BIOS which has either an on or off for the audio. With it on everything proceeds as described, fine but no sound. With it off, i get insmod errors for es1371. Note that i uncommented modprobe es1371 from /etc/rc.d/rc.modules.

Rodrin: you think the power outage that fryed both my power supply and my hard drive could have damaged my audio chip or am i being silly? how can i test for the frydnessness level of my hardware ?

so im gonna try the net card in a different slot like Rodrin said and then i'm gonna ask if its safe to change the IRQ for the different PCI slots in the BIOS.

update in a few hours....

thx

All right, from my experience as a pc-tech... there is nothing wrong with many devices sharing the same irq, that is what is called PCI Steering, is just normal. First I would suggest that you take out all the PCI cards and EISA if you have any, including the PCI ultra ata controller and test with the bare minimum components installed. Once you have only the video card installed and nothing else, try the sound card againg. If it still does not wok, then disable the integrated sound card in the BIOS and try with another sound card. If that one works, then your integrated sound card is bad. You could also try upgrading the BIOS to see if the manufacturer fixes the conflicts or problem that you are experiencing; look up their website and see if any body else with the same motherboard is having the same problem.

Just a suggestion,
Figa