Re: need Ph.D. for sound even with common hardware?

[Kent West <westk@acu.edu>]

Dan Jacobson wrote:

> How kind of you to help me find the simplest way to make my
> system give even the littlest bleat.  I did
> # modprobe ac97
> # modprobe ac97_codec
> # modprobe via82cxxx_audio
> # cat bleat.au > /dev/audio
> # tail /var/log/syslog
> Via 686a audio driver 1.9.1
> ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, id: 0x414c:0x4710 (ALC200/200P)
> via82cxxx: board #1 at 0xE400, IRQ 12
> Via 686a audio driver 1.9.1
> ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, id: 0x414c:0x4710 (ALC200/200P)
> via82cxxx: board #1 at 0xE400, IRQ 12
> via_audio: ignoring drain playback error -512
>
> isn't 0xE400 what my http://jidanni.org/comp/system.txt says it should
> be?  I want to try this the non Alsa way to reduce complexity. 
> I cannot find tool "via-audio-diag" mentioned in some articles.
> Drain playback error -512 is not explained by google searching. 
>  
I'm not sure what you're asking/saying.

Except for the "drain playback error", things look okay. (You should be 
able to simply "modprobe via82cxxx_audio" without the previous "modprobe 
ac97..." steps -- the auto-dependency feature of modprobe should 
automatically load the ac97... modules.)

I wouldn't worry too much about the "drain playback error"; if the 
system is willing to ignore it, I'd be willing to ignore it, if things 
work otherwise.

Yes, according to your link,

00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 30)
	Subsystem: Avance Logic Inc.: Unknown device 4710
	Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
	Status: Cap+ 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
	Interrupt: pin C routed to IRQ 12
	Region 0: I/O ports at e400 [size=256]
	Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2
		Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
		Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-


the IO port for your sound circuit is at e400, irq 12. Things like fine.

It sounds like you just don't have sound.

First make sure you're in the audio group ("<become_root> addgroup dan 
audio" - then log out and back in as "dan" -- type "groups" to verify 
you're in the audio group).

Second, kill X (for now), and make sure you don't have any sound daemons 
(esd, artsd) running.

Use "splay <some_MP3_file" to play an MP3. If you don't hear anything, 
fire up "aumix"; you'll see two columns. The left-hand side is the 
volume level for the different input/output devices; bring them all up 
to 75% or better with the arrow keys. Then tab over to the second column 
and hit the 5 on the numeric keypad to center the balance on each 
device. You should now be hearing your MP3.

Kent