[lilwip]

I am running Mandrake 8.1 on a Sony Vaio Desktop. Install went very smooth and all is working well, I am posting from that machine right now. Only problem I am having revolves around sound. I can't get it to work. What should I check?

[lilwip]

Bumping this in hopes that weaver or someone will see it and give me at least one idea.

[Weaver]

What sound chip is in the machine? I am sure it is some ac97 compatible clone. What chipset does the mobo use? Is it the Intel i810?

You can (should) be able to do an "lspci" at the command prompt to list all devices on the pci bus (sound chip/card).

Like this:

root@weaver:~# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82810E DC-133 GMCH [Graphics Memory Controller Hub] (rev 03)
00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corp. 82810E DC-133 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller] (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801AA PCI Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801AA ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801AA IDE (rev 02)
00:1f.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801AA USB (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp. 82801AA SMBus (rev 02)
01:05.0 Multimedia audio controller: ESS Technology ES1988 Allegro-1 (rev 12)
01:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82557/8/9 [Ethernet Pro 100] (rev 02)

Notice it says "Multimedia audio controller", yours should say something like that. Let me know what it is.

We need to make sure that the right module is loaded for the right card/chip.

-Weaver

[lilwip]

[root@Mandrake root]# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 440LX/EX - 82443LX/EX Host bridge (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 440LX/EX - 82443LX/EX AGP bridge (rev 03)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB PIIX4 ISA (rev 01)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82371AB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82371AB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 01)
00:0d.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc 3D Rage II+ 215GTB [Mach64 GTB] (rev 9a)
00:0e.0 Ethernet controller: Bridgecom, Inc: Unknown device 0985 (rev 11)
[root@Mandrake root]#

Doesn't look like there is one.... kinda weird

[Weaver]

First time I have ever seen that...

Do you know what kind of audio chipset is in the machine?

Secondly, what is the exact model name/number of the notebook?

-Weaver

[Weaver]

Before we really dive in here, what exactly is happening, how does it not work? What are the errors/messages/indicators that it is not working, besides the probable fact that no audio is coming out of the speakers...

-Weaver

[lilwip]

That is the only indicator... No error messages, just no sound, almost like there are no drivers present for the sound card. It is a desktop, not a notebook. The model is a PCV-200. It is an older machine, but it runs drake like a champion!

[Weaver]

Do you know what type of sound card/onboard is in the machine? We get that figured out and we are 90 percent done.

-Weaver

[lilwip]

After a bit of research, the sound card in the machine is a Yamaha OPL3-SAx series onboard sound. I am not sure if it is an SA, SA2, or SA3 however...

[Weaver]

Very nice, now what kernel version are you running? Hopefully 2.4.18 or higher. Are you using a default kernel provided by Mandrake or did you compile your own?

If you are using a default, hopefully Mandrake compiled a bunch of modules for us to peruse through.

Go to /lib/modules/%kernel_version%/kernel/drivers/sound

If Mandrake was a good little Mandrake (I have really never used it), you should have some modules in there. They will .o or .o.tgz or something like that.

Look for something like with yamaha or OPL in it. If you have anything like that, let me know. If you don't we are going to have to go and find the drivers and compile them.

I do know that anything above 2.4.18 has support for that soundcard, as I have the modules in my linux source tree.

-Weaver