Sound problems with FC3 - Now FC4 still working on it - help!

[trickster]

As I stated before, I think your soundcard is disabled on the BIOS. I believe you need to reinstall that partition.
I believe this is the software you need. However, you need to run it from Windows, and there's a chance that it will mess up your partitions, so you might want to do backups before doing it.

After that, follow the instructions on this.

[DamselNDistress]

[quote author=trickster link=board=1;threadid=10571;start=0#msg95035 date=1121007495]
As I stated before, I think your soundcard is disabled on the BIOS. I believe you need to reinstall that partition.
I believe this is the software you need. However, you need to run it from Windows, and there's a chance that it will mess up your partitions, so you might want to do backups before doing it.

After that, follow the instructions on this.
[/quote]

I'm working on that right now. I didn't ignore your instructions, but they were posted while I was fooling around restarting and whatnot, so my latest post was actually sent before I saw your latest. I do not have windows - can I install this with wine? Should I at least give it a try?

Also, I will follow the instructions you indicate with regard to the Compaq setup, but these instructions also include:

In the kernel you need sound-Support (sound.o, soundcore.o) and the Soundblaster-module (sb.o)
Run sndconfig (the card is not detected automatically) and select manually ESS1688 AudioDrive

We've already figured out that this doesn't work with my kernel. I think that the equivalent has already been taken care of, since I have finally gotten alsamixer et al to work.

I guess what I don't understand is how I'm getting sound (even annoying repetitive sound) if the soundcard is disabled on bios.

[trickster]

I'm not sure how you are getting sound, and I might be wrong about the BIOS. However, the lspci command oes not show your card, which most likely means linux is not seeing it. Besides, some people on other posts have reported the card either being turned off on the BIOS, or being shipped with different IRQ, etc settings.

I agree that the last part does not apply to your configuration.

Regarding running it under wine, I tried but was unable to.
I believe this software just creates a bootable floppy that will install the software. (You might have to press Fn+f11 on bootup, if floppy booting is disabled on the laptop.) Anyway, If you are unable to access a Windows machine to create the boot disk, let me know. I'd be happy to create a linux-usable image for the boot floppy.

Good luck!

[Tyr_7BE]

I really don't have much to add here...this is a very stubborn problem...more stubborn than any I've ever seen in my 5 years of linux. It's unfortunate that you got hit with something this bad so early in your Linux experience.

What I can tell you is this: in order to get any sound at all, even the repeating tatatatatata, your operating system needs to know where to send the data so that it comes through your sound card, and not your network card or monitor or usb port or somewhere off into memory. Basically, if your computer is making sound then the drivers are loaded and sound is being sent to your soundcard.

As for why it's not working, I have no idea. Did you try playing something with XMMS?

[pbharris]

i thinks the es1688 is a ISA based chipset, but i am still wondering if it is enabled in the BIOS... it is a supported card, it shgould be getting detected.

[DamselNDistress]

I haven't tried playing anything with xmms, because I don't have it. I also don't have any ogg or mp3 files to play, since I don't have sound, I haven't gotten any yet.

Meanwhile, I've spent all afternoon trying to figure out how to back up my system so that I can either get the generous and helpful trickster to do that linux-usable image OR wait until wednesday when I go back to work and do it myself on my sucky windows pc there. (Sucky because it was down ALL DAY friday running scandisk from safemode to begin figure out it's little problems. maybe i'm giving off some sort of computer-killing-cosmic-rays.)

I do think the bios issue needs to be dealt with. So I'll continue in my pursuit of a way to back up. Thanks once more for all y'alls help.

[DamselNDistress]

Well, I tried the bios thing, but it didn't work - either because I didn't know what I was doing, or I downloaded the wrong file, or whatever. Somehow in the midst of trying to back up my files, I screwed something up and had to reinstall the OS. Well, then I had no internet. Now, weeks later, I've been through six linux installs and one Windows 98 fiasco. (I had sound with 98, but hardly anything else.) So, now I'm on FC4 - FINALLY back on the internet, and still fighting to get some sound from this little box.

I've been back through the steps we went over before - still no sound.
I'm now downloading an ogg file with my dial-up connection provided by molasses.net, so I'll let y'all know if it plays, if and when it arrives in full.

Any other suggestions?

--Don't have xmms, but Rhythmbox won't play the ogg. When I try to run alsamixer, it tells me

alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such file or directory

[trickster]

Hi,

Can you try again the

/sbin/lspci

command?
Also, can you post

/sbin/lsmod

?

[trickster]

also, the output of

cat /proc/asound/cards

[trickster]

Also, what happends when you go to Desktop>System Settings>Soundcard Detection?