sound card not working properly

[terpic]

I am running Mandrake 9.1 and sometimes when I log on the sound card doesn't work and the opening music doesn't play. Sometimes an error message comes up saying there is a problem with the sound card and it can't be found. Also I am unable to play compact discs and the media player doesn't work. The only indication that lthe sound card is working is the startup music at logon, all these problems are intermittent is Mandrake this buggy or is there another explaination.

Thanks for any help.

[hard candy]

When you look at the hardware info (is it Drakeware?) is the sound card listed. Also, is the user in the audio group? And what sound system are you using-ALSA or OSS?

[JamminJoeyB]

Need more info please. Post your system specs. Mobo,cpu,sound card, etc.

Some standard things to check below.
Post the results of lsmod. are the sound modules loading?

Check dmseg for errors intializing your sounds card.

[terpic]

This is the information I think is relevant to the sound card after I ran lsmod

snd-seq-oss 31104 0 (unused)
snd-seq-midi-event 5640 0 [snd-seq-oss]
snd-seq 42608 2 [snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event]
snd-pcm-oss 43556 0
snd-mixer-oss 14488 0 [snd-pcm-oss]
snd-intel8x0 21988 4
snd-ac97-codec 40160 0 [snd-intel8x0]
snd-pcm 77536 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-intel8x0]
snd-timer 18376 0 [snd-seq snd-pcm]
snd-mpu401-uart 4396 0 [snd-intel8x0]
snd-rawmidi 17600 0 [snd-mpu401-uart]
snd-seq-device 5832 0 [snd-seq-oss snd-seq snd-rawmidi]
snd-page-alloc 7732 0 [snd-intel8x0 snd-pcm]
snd 40868 4 [snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-intel8x0 snd-ac97-codec snd-pcm snd-timer snd-mpu401-uart snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device]
soundcore 6276 0 [snd]

my sound card is 82801EB AC'97 audio, I think the processor is an Intel R 82865g\PE\P It seems the card goes missing when I switch between users when i get an error message "sound server information, device/dev/dsp can't be opened device or resource busy, sound server will continue using nul output" I hope this helps to sort the problem, when I log off after the soundcard has failed, the log says modprobe can't locate sound card, the problem goes after a restart.

Thanks for your help.

[JamminJoeyB]

Not an expert, but it sounds like a permissions problem here. I'm being pretty general since I am not totaly sure why a different user would cause the sound to quit like that.

You could try something considered dangerous and chmod 666 /dev/dsp.

See if that keeps sound going under the different users.

[Satanic Atheist]

Changing the permissions on /dev/dsp isn't dangerous at all!

Oh, and I had a similar problem in Slackware 9.1 a couple of days ago, so you might want to look at this (http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=113859) for some info.

What concerns me is that the module snd-seq-oss isn't being used. This indicates that there may be another module missing.

If you look for all your compiled sound modules (I think they're in /lib/modules/2.4.**/kernel/drivers/sound/) Then you can try insmod on anything you THINK should be loaded, but isn't.

I only had three to insert:

ac97_codec.0 (or whatever)
sound.o
emu10k1.o

Once these were loaded (for an SBLive! card) I could have sound. My sound card was commented out from the boot modprobe (as you'll see on the other thread).

James

[JamminJoeyB]

Satanic Atheist,

I know it's really dangerous, but I also like to leave that as a last option. If I remember my permissions correctly 666 give access to everyone.

Just about everytime I have installed slackware it was the only way for me to get sound going.

BTW I'll be running 9.1 as my main distro this weekend.

terpic, did you get this resolved?

[Satanic Atheist]

Originally posted by JamminJoeyB:
I know it's really dangerous
Can you please qualify why it's dangerous?

My permissions are as follows:

crw-rw--w- 1 root sys 14, 3 Aug 29 08:47 /dev/dsp0

And always have been. Even from install. OK, not quite 666 but still 662 is close.

I see absolutely no way in which a block device (which is basically a file-handle attachment to a physical device) can in any way be abused. Especially if it's a Sound Card.

James

[JamminJoeyB]

I meant to say not dangerous. But if you chmod 666 everytime you have a problem and that fixes the problem. Wouldn't the possibility of opening up something for full access to the world happen.

I'm thinking worse case here.

I'd just like to know if he ever got sound working.

[Satanic Atheist]

Aye, I'd like to know as well!

OK, you're point is valid and I accept your mistake. It IS dangerous to open everything up. If you want that, you might as well install Windows...

James

[terpic]

I haven't tried your advice yet but will tonight and let you know, Thanks for your help I'm afraid I am a bit useless with Linux at the moment and only "play" with it occasionally to try to learn.

[terpic]

I tried opening a terminal and typing chmod 666 dev/dsp and nothing happened again after a restart no sound I can open a data cd usually although they will not eject, I can't play an audio cd because nothing happens when I insert it other than it spins. I tried the checks you suggested but the results were fairly meaningless to me there seems to be no way of checking if the sound is actually working other than the opening sound at startup, the media players don't seem to work. Mandrake is the closest I have got to a useable Linux system but I'm afraid it is becomming more hard work than is worth bothering with, truly fed up.

[DMR]

Originally posted by terpic
I tried opening a terminal and typing chmod 666 dev/dsp and nothing happened Check to see if the permission change worked. What are the results of:

ls -ld /dev/dsp

Originally posted by terpic
I tried the checks you suggested but the results were fairly meaningless to meYes, but the results might be meaningful to us. :)

Post the output of the "dmesg" command so that we can see what's going on at boot up.

Also, you might have a device/driver resource conflict. Post the results of the the following 2 commands:

less /proc/interrupts
less /proc/ioports

[terpic]

The results of ls -id /dev/dsp were 1513/dev/dsp

less /proc/interrupts was:

CPU0
0: 121200 IO-APIC-edge timer
1: 388 IO-APIC-edge keyboard
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
8: 1 IO-APIC-edge rtc
12: 79249 IO-APIC-edge PS/2 Mouse
14: 15566 IO-APIC-edge ide0
15: 174 IO-APIC-edge ide1
16: 171 IO-APIC-level usb-uhci, usb-uhci
17: 3039 IO-APIC-level Intel 82901EB-ICH5
18: 0 IO-APIC-level usb-uhci
19: 0 IO-APIC-level usb-uhci
20: 586 IO-APIC-level eth0
23: 0 IO-APIC-level ehci-hcd
NMI: 0
LOC: 121150
ERR: 0
MIS: 0
/proc/interrupts lines 1-18/18 (END)

The results of less /proc/ioports was

0000-001f : dma1
0020-003f : pic1
0040-005f : timer
0060-006f : keyboard
0070-007f : rtc
0080-008f : dma page reg
00a0-00bf : pic2
00c0-00df : dma2
00f0-00ff : fpu
0170-0177 : ide1
01f0-01f7 : ide0
02f8-02ff : serial(auto)
0376-0376 : ide1
0378-037a : parport0
037b-037f : parport0
03c0-03df : vesafb
03f6-03f6 : ide0
03f8-03ff : serial(auto)
0500-051f : PCI device 8086:24d3 (Intel Corp.)
0cf8-0cff : PCI conf1
a000-a03f : PCI device 8086:1050 (Intel Corp.)
a000-a03f : e100
a400-a407 : Conexant HSF 56k HSFi Modem
/proc/ioports lines 1-23

when I tried dmesg it produced 6 pages of information let me know if you want me to post all of it or only a part of it.

thanks again for all you are doing.

[DMR]

Originally posted by terpic
The results of ls -id /dev/dsp were 1513/dev/dsp That " i " is wrong; it should be a lower-case "L". It's easy to make that mistake with some screen fonts. Can you run the command again using the proper syntax please?

[The Whizzard]

Originally posted by Satanic Atheist
Can you please qualify why it's dangerous?

My permissions are as follows:

crw-rw--w- 1 root sys 14, 3 Aug 29 08:47 /dev/dsp0

And always have been. Even from install. OK, not quite 666 but still 662 is close.

I see absolutely no way in which a block device (which is basically a file-handle attachment to a physical device) can in any way be abused. Especially if it's a Sound Card.

James
What if a script-kiddie gained non-root access through any security hole? They, not being root, can still cat /dev/urandom > /dev/dsp. Although not necessarily dangerous, it would be annoying for you. If your speakers were turned up, it could potentialy blow them or your ears.
Instead of chmodding everything, make the users that need sound part of the audio group. Of course all the audio devices will need to be changed to the audio group if they aren't already.

[terpic]

This is the result of ls -ld /dev/dsp

lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 9 Oct 12 09:17 /dev/dsp -> sound/dsp

also when I type /dev/dsp from a terminal as root it replies permission denied, and chmod 666 /dev/dsp still seems to have no effect, I also get the same when I log in as root, (which I supose I should expect).