Creative es1373

[hotrats]

I am having troubles getting sound to work. I popped the case and read the chip info on the soundcard. My Red Hat 7.3 is detecting es1371. My info sheet reads Creative Sound Blaster AudioPCI 128D (WDM). When I popped the case I read this info on the card itself:

The chip is stamped:

Creative
ES 1373
1373-0001005

The card has a model No:

CT5806 or CT5306

I am almost positve it is CT5806 but there is a dimple over the 8.

Am I banging my head against a wall getting this card configured? I posted in the tech forum but wonder if someone here in hardware can tell me if this card will go.

Thanks
David

[janet loves bill]

http://www.alsa-project.org/
this chipset can use the alsa drivers.

[hotrats]

Thanks for the lead. I installed alsa and everything ran fine till I got to the part on inserting the modules into the kernel space. It failed. Now I search for help with alsa.

David

[janet loves bill]

ok, look in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules
and uncomment the line that concerns your sound card.
uncomment=delete the # (hash mark)
then type at command line ...modprobe es1371
and see if it helps to load module
not sure if you need to add a line to the /etc/modules.conf file
will look around for a post/thread for same symptoms

[hotrats]

Hold on there. I commented out an options line that alsa had given me concerning midi (in /etc/modules.conf). I got the modules loaded and alsamixer running. I turned up the volumes. I still get no sound but I got a few steps further in the alsa set-up.

I do not find a file /etc/rc.d/rc.modules .

Thanks for helping me along here. I'm not really sure what to do next though. Time to read a bit more I guess. Back to the ALSA site.

David

[hotrats]

I set the volumes up on alsamixer and rebooted. When I ran lsmod I get:

Module Size Used by Tainted: P
ppp_deflate 4032 0 (autoclean)
zlib_deflate 21344 0 (autoclean) [ppp_deflate]
ppp_async 8256 1 (autoclean)
ppp_generic 24108 3 (autoclean) [ppp_deflate ppp_async]
slhc 6508 1 (autoclean) [ppp_generic]
hcfpciserial 20032 2 (autoclean)
hcfpciengine 707704 0 (autoclean) [hcfpciserial]
hcfpciosspec 21012 0 (autoclean) [hcfpciserial hcfpciengine]
sr_mod 16920 2 (autoclean)
snd-pcm-oss 43524 0 (autoclean)
snd-mixer-oss 12864 0 (autoclean) [snd-pcm-oss]
snd-ens1371 14980 0 (autoclean)
snd-pcm 78240 0 (autoclean) [snd-pcm-oss snd-ens1371]
snd-timer 13952 0 (autoclean) [snd-pcm]
snd-rawmidi 16672 0 (autoclean) [snd-ens1371]
snd-seq-device 5612 0 (autoclean) [snd-rawmidi]
snd-ac97-codec 31504 0 (autoclean) [snd-ens1371]
snd 37704 0 (autoclean) [snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-ens1371 snd-pcm snd-timer snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device snd-ac97-codec]
soundcore 6692 6 (autoclean) [snd]
binfmt_misc 7556 1
autofs 12164 0 (autoclean) (unused)
ipchains 43560 10
ide-scsi 9664 1
scsi_mod 108608 2 [sr_mod ide-scsi]
ide-cd 30272 0
cdrom 32192 0 [sr_mod ide-cd]
usb-uhci 24484 0 (unused)
usbcore 73152 1 [usb-uhci]
tulip 43040 0 (unused)
ext3 67136 2
jbd 49400 2 [ext3]

It appears the modules are loading properly? I re-ran alsamixer and the volumes were all muted again. How do I save the volume settings in alsamixer. I tried playing a CD and so far no sound. Back to the site again.

David

[hotrats]

No sound. ugh ....

David

[janet loves bill]

oh, what are the permissions of user? you might need to add user to the group "audio". try that.
also does your /etc/fstab show that user is allowed access to /dev/cdrom?

[janet loves bill]

Originally posted by hotrats
Hold on there. I commented out an options line that alsa had given me concerning midi (in /etc/modules.conf). I got the modules loaded and alsamixer running. I turned up the volumes. I still get no sound but I got a few steps further in the alsa set-up.

I do not find a file /etc/rc.d/rc.modules .

Thanks for helping me along here. I'm not really sure what to do next though. Time to read a bit more I guess. Back to the ALSA site.

David
yours might be different. in slackware it is /etc/rc.d/rc.modules
but redhat could have a different name , you should have the /etc/rc.d directory at least.

[hotrats]

ouch... I am officially lost here.

I woke this morning and went to give it another stab and after resetting the volume controls in alsamixer I obtained a modest amount of garbled sound from the speakers. As far as permissions I am working totally in "root" while trying to fix the audio problems as my understanding is that while in "root" I do not have to muddle in the area of permissions.

I am searching for info on where to proceed but as I am a newbie I am having a difficult time understanding where and what is being asked. My results so far are that the alsa modules are indeed loading ... the alsa utility "alsamixer" is responding ... the player is running and providing a modest amount of garbled noise when all volume controls on my system are max'd out. At this point I have achieved approximately the same level of performance as I had without alsa.

I do have a etc/rc.d directory but I find no mention of modules.

Thanks for your help. So far this is the best response I have achieved via a forum. I am getting very discouraged though. I have worked with this Red Hat install now for well over 6 months. I am happy with Linux but the sound issue is one I can not ignore. This chip set is a nasty nasty entity. Perhaps if I wish to keep working with Red Hat my best option is to dump out the sound card and start with something with better support. I just have this side of me that won't give up but I am reaching a point where the frustration is overwhelming.

David

[hotrats]

????

I am seeing a lot of references to the card in a google search. One thing that is mentioned more than once is to add "spdif=1" to the module parameter. How would I do this? In /etc/module.conf? If so what would I say ... just add a line that says "spdif=1"? This module parameter seemed to fix more than a few peoples problems.

http://www.linuxdj.com/audio/quality/#supported_digi

David

[mdwatts]

options es1371 spdif=1

in /etc/modules.conf should work.

[hotrats]

I tried adding the line:

options snd-ens1371 spdif=1

Since I am using the alsa driver at the moment. I get an error opening /dev/dsp.

Also read a bit about turning PCI latency off in BIOS but alas once again as I ran into with the disable PnP in OS I do not have any PCI latency options in my BIOS.

Stone walls appear at every step. The thing that gets me is most of the stuff I am reading states that the Creative es1373 chip set should be golden under Linux. What I am missing to this point is getting me frustrated.

David

[hotrats]

One interesting thing that happens.

When I open "alsamixer" and start unmuting and jacking levels on different controls .... when I get to PCM setting and unmute and raise level I get a low level garble from my speakers even when no sound source is playing.

Not sure if this is a hidden clue or not but thought I'd mention it.

David

[mdwatts]

Strange how I can install my distro (Caldera) on any pc or laptop and I rarely need to manually configure any of the hardware.

As root,

chmod 660 /dev/dsp

I had the SB PCI-128 in a pc I have since sold and never had any problems as it was always detected and configured during the Caldera installation.

[janet loves bill]

Well you are getting garbled sound, it's a start. have you tried moving the speaker plug to different jacks on the card itself?
The signal output of that card is analog only, I used to have one, they are good cards and it ran my boston acoustics 735 speaker set really well. Bring up the alsamixer and right click in various places and see if some sort of options menu appears. this might give you a menu of sorts for 2, or 4 speakers, and weather or not to enable or disable digital sound?!?
((shrugs shoulders)) :eek:

[hotrats]

LOL ...

I have another plug area on the card. I moved the speaker connection over and got nothing. You wanna hear something that makes me even more frustrated? I am running Boston Acoustic Digital BA735's ... LOL I am assuming these are one and the same?

David

[hotrats]

So my speakers are digital only. My driver under Winblows converts analog to digital ... ergo they work fine over there. Anyone familiar with an ALSA way to convert?

David

[hotrats]

Just wanted to thank everyone who responded to my questions. I now have sound in my Red Hat 7.3 install using snd-ens1371 (alsa). Basically it finally came down to the fact that my sound card (Creative ES1373 chip) delivers an analog signal and my speakers were in fact digital only.

Sound Blaster wrote a nifty driver for the Windows side of things that converted that signal. Rather than invest in a different sound card that produces the digital signal my speakers require or attempt to jump hoops through my present driver I decided to go down to the local computer store and snagged a nice set of analog speakers. THEY WORK! As soon as I enjoy a little Zappa ala Linux I'll figure out how to save my alsamixer settings so I don't have to unmute everytime I load.

Thanks go out especially to "janet loves bill". Your responses broke the log jam on this issue.

David

[janet loves bill]

Welcome. enjoy!
ps...the Ba 735's I got from gateway were originally analog/digital they have 2 connectors on back of Sub. Boston Acou. has since upgraded them to digital only. So they work great with SB live card also.