VIA AC92 sound problems

[cleidh_mor]

I've successfully installed the AC92 driver and stuff under Red Hat 7.2 with sndconfig and the soundcard works ok, but for some reason it's making hideous distortions at high frequency. Is this a driver problem? Does anyone know how to fix it?

Cheers
Cleidh Mor

[mdwatts]

Have you tried adjusting any of the controls in the sound mixer?


Unless other members can help, you might want to try searching around for your soundcard model to see if others have reported similiar problems.

Google for Linux would be a good place to start. www.google.com/linux

[cleidh_mor]

Yeh, I've tried the sound mixer controls... it doesn't seem to be them. I'm pretty sure it's not the speakers either because everything works ok in Win XP which I have on a separate partition. The only thing I can think of offhand is that the driver's not quite right and that it needs updated :mad:

I've had a search for similar problems but there don't seem to be any... I obviously have a freak computer.

Thanks for the reply.

Cheers,
Cleidh Mor

[garthm]

I had all sorts of funky sound problems with an older mandrake installation (based on redhat). My mb wasn't via, but it used a similar sound device. Check what kind of driver it's using. Switch to ALSA if it's not already.

Look at http://www.alsa-project.org/, or check your cd -- it may be included, but not used (was the case for me).

G

[Lorithar]

garthm --> dark crystal???


AC92? maybe we mean AC97????

[garthm]

Originally posted by Lorithar
garthm --> dark crystal???

Huh???

AC92? maybe we mean AC97????

Wasn't paying close enough attention. Mine is an AC '97; is there such a thing as ac '92?

[Elijah]

I never used my onboard AC'97 right after buying a cheapie c-media card, works fine unlike ac97 that only gave me problems. Consider buying a new one, otherwise well, good luck :)

[cleidh_mor]

Yup, I do indeed mean AC97. Serves me right for not reading the screen properly. Anyway, I've located a new(ish?) looking driver from VIA.

I would go out and buy a new card but I'm a poor student so no go there. Anyway the AC97 is fine in Windoze. Surely it'll be ok in Linux with the right driver ;)

Besides, I *did* have it working properly at one point but unfortunately something trashed my installation and I had to re-install.. so back to the old problem. Serves me right for not writing it down last time. If I find a solution, I'll try and post it somewhere.

Cheers for all the replies guys,

Cleidh Mor

[Lorithar]

Originally posted by garthm

Huh???
? [/B]

Sorry just curious ...
Garthim and Skexis were creatures in a movie called the Dark Crystal... your alias sounds vaguely like Garthim...

[Lorithar]

Anyway .. .back to the original question ....


Hideous distortion at high frequency??

i.e. if you have the volume cranked the sound is whacked?? or is this specific types of sound aren't reproducing accurately??

[cleidh_mor]

Well, basically most of the sounds put out by GNOME to stand for events <shudder> have a lot of noise in them. Also (and this is what annoys me) playing mp3s and other music seems to cause the soundcard trouble. By this I mean that it adds in high frequency noise on most tracks. Some tracks that are mostly playing at low frequencies or are mostly comprised of heavy guitar/bass and loww vocals play fine. :confused:

So as I say, the accursed thing seems to work fine in Windoze and so I'm forced to conclude that it must be the driver. Anyway, I'm just about to try that new driver from VIA and failing that, I've got the ALSA driver as well.

Cheers,

Cleidh Mor

PS- you're right, I remember Dark Crystal as well. Classic film :D

[Lorithar]

*numph* ... you have the solution in your hands ... I strongly suggest alsa ... much better sound management utility than the kernel builtin OSS ...

Nice thing to keep in mind ... as of 2.4.22 we'll start seeing Alsa in the kerenel (I believe) and there are huge chunks of it already in the 2.5.x series ... *whee*.


Do yourself one favour though ... and make sure that the cables for your IDE/SCSI drives aren't coming to rest on any of the components of the sound system... I had an older system with an onboard sound system that I could never get to behave well ... made all sorts of strange noises... it took some hunting, but after a case cleanup one weekend (in frustration) all the odd sounds went away ... and all I did was bundle the IDE cables up and pin them off the mobo.. (thus I concluded that the cables might have been sitting on something and feeding their noise into the sound system) --Point .. this might not be happening in windows ... or as obvious in windows because of differences between the sound/ide drivers as much as anything else.

[JohnT]

Are you using KDE? Go into the main menu and select "multimedia>aRts Control Tool. It has a drop down menu that will let you take care of your problem.

[Elijah]

hmmm, I tried RH7.2 once and the sound is terrible (ac97). I switched to RH7.3 and the sound seems to have improved but a bit distorted when you crank up the volume. Maybe try to look for RH7.3 sound drivers? , sorry I can't help much I'm not good at drivers yet. Since I've disabled my ac97 I won't have an idea of what was my driver back then.

Just something to look for if all else fails :D

[Stween]

Heh, strange to see another CS student from glasgow uni here :)

My laptop hasthat same VIA AC97 chipset. By default it's damn quiet, but it works almost perfectly for me. I'm running the 2.4.18 kernel that came with slackware 8.1, but recompiled to include the VIA 82C686 Audio codec.

Occaisionally, playback of mp3's or ogg vorbis can come through a little dodgy, but normally fixes itself. It's strange that the supplied modules cause problems, and would suggest that recompiling the kernel module in question would not help matters.

As someone pointed out, ditch OSS if you can, move onto ALSA.

Hope you get it working right.