Bug 137363

Summary:	Asus A8N-SLI mobo sound card
Product:	[openSUSE] SUSE LINUX 10.0	Reporter:	Ioannis Manoloudis <manoloudis4linux>
Component:	Sound	Assignee:	Takashi Iwai <tiwai>
Status:	RESOLVED WONTFIX	QA Contact:	E-mail List <qa-bugs>
Severity:	Major
Priority:	P2 - High
Version:	Final
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	x86-64
OS:	SuSE Linux 10.0
Whiteboard:
Found By:	Customer	Services Priority:
Business Priority:		Blocker:	---
Marketing QA Status:	---	IT Deployment:	---
Attachments:	for debugging reasons I am attaching the /etc/asound.state file

Description Ioannis Manoloudis 2005-12-07 13:04:39 UTC

Hello
I have the Asus A8N-SLI motherboard with the Nforce 4 Sli chipset and the Realtec 850 AC'97 audio codec.
Yast->SOUND detects it as K8N4-E mainboard,
configured as sound card 0
driver snd-intel8x0
When I click on test I hear no sound. When I try to playback an ogg (I'l submit another bug issue on mp3s) file I hear no sound.
Asus provides however some audio drivers for linux here: http://dlsvr02.asus.com/pub/ASUS/misc/audio/ALC850/ALC850_Linux.zip
It is source file of the driver. It seems that it is a rather old version of alsa.
Unfortunately it has failed compilation.
Could you provide a compiled implementation in future SuSE linux versions?
After all the A8N-SLI series is a very popular choice for 64 bit Athlon's therefore many other users might have the same problem with me.
Ioannis

Comment 1 Ioannis Manoloudis 2005-12-12 17:32:19 UTC

I downloaded, compiled and installed the drivers from Realtek.
They can be obtained here: http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/dlac97-2.aspx?lineid=5&famid=12&series=8&Software=True
Yet I have no sound.
Also yast/sound has changed it's behavior. 
It displays Nvidia CK804. 
Configured as sound card number 
Driver snd-intel8x0

It doesn't display number. 
Finally when I press anything like edit it crashes.
Why?
Ioannis

Comment 2 Takashi Iwai 2005-12-12 17:53:49 UTC

I guess it's a mixer configuration problem.

Please attach /etc/asound.state and /proc/asound/card0/codec97#0/* files for debugging.

(BTW, mp3 related bugs won't be fixed, excpet for amarok + helix engine.)

Comment 3 Ioannis Manoloudis 2005-12-12 18:43:58 UTC

Created attachment 60309 [details]
for debugging reasons I am attaching the /etc/asound.state file

Comment 4 Ioannis Manoloudis 2005-12-12 18:51:19 UTC

I have attached the /etc/asound.state file
In /proc/asound/card0/codec97#0/* there are two files named ac97#0-0 and  ac97#0-0+regs 
Both these files are empty.

(BTW, does it mean that amarok can play mp3s? What is this Helix engine? Is it on the cd?)

Comment 5 Takashi Iwai 2005-12-14 13:34:35 UTC

The files are not empty but you cannot tar the proc files.  Simply update both files separately.

I don't see any wrong setting in /etc/asound.state.  Which output are you testing?  Do you check the output from line-out jack?

About MP3: helix engine is a plugin to use the binaries of Realplayer for Amarok, etc.  It's (literarlly) illegal to decode MP3 in another way unless you bought the MP3 license.  Only a few players support helix, and unfortunately, a bit buggy.

Comment 6 Takashi Iwai 2005-12-14 13:35:01 UTC

A typo: s/update/upload/

Comment 7 Ioannis Manoloudis 2005-12-15 08:55:12 UTC

Takashi thank you for your help
I plugged some additional cables to my sound card.
I had been using the coaxial SPDIF output and I was able to hear in windows.
However It seems that I had to plug in the analog cables as well to the sound card as well in order to hear under Linux.
Why doesn't spdif work under Linux
Ioannis


ps: If you wish you can change this status to FIXED

Comment 8 Takashi Iwai 2006-01-11 16:15:07 UTC

It's partly because Nvidia never released the technical documents.
You might enable the SPDIF out by changing 'AC97-SPSA' mixer control to value 0, and turn on 'IEC958' mxier switch.  But, it might not work, too...