Hi all,

I'm by no means a Linux PC hacker, so I thought I was playing it safe by ordering an Intel board from my local computer shop. I knew that the DG965WH could be coaxed into working, so I asked for the DG965OT, which is the micro-ATX version that would fit in my Antec NSK2400 case.

Instead of getting the DG965OT I requested, the shop ordered the DQ965GF, which is part of Intel's Executive line of business-oriented boards. I didn't think the board could differ all that much from the DG965OT that I wanted, but the persistent problems I am encountering are leading me to believe there may be important distances between them.

The first problem is the utter lack of audio for roughly 95% of my attempts to use the system. I've reinstalled countless times, picking boot options like intelfix and dragon2 to account for known Intel issues.

The forums mention alsaconf and alsamixer as a way to get the sound back, but it's not that easy for me, since aumix, alsamixer and other alsa tools simply hang. Even a kill -9 cannot get rid of those processes once they've hung. I've even updated the alsa driver to alsa-driver-1.0.14rc4 and the problem remains. I still cannot get alsamixer to work at all.

The other problem is a constant tic or pause in the video playback, which occurs at least once every few seconds, regardless of whether or not I have audio. The signal quality is otherwise good, which tells me that the frequent catch I see and hear is not due to signal problems.

I sincerely hope that a DG965OT board does a better job, since I am about to ask my computer shop to get that board in for me to try.

Any comments, questions or tips would be greatly appreciated.

SETUP:
New R5F1 install
Antec NSK2400 case
Intel DQ965GF board
Core2 Duo E6320 1.86GHz
2GB DDR2 PC5300/667 RAM
eVGA GeForce 7600GS
Two PCHDTV HD-5500 capture cards
Seagate 250GB SATA HD
Samsung WriteMaster DVD-RW

Have you tried a couple of other distros out, just to see what happens so you can pin the problem(s) down?

Bruce S.

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Updated 2019/10/26: AthlonII X2 265 Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P
16Gb PC 1866 DDR3, 500GB+2TB+4TB SATA HDD,
SATA DVD-RW Asus DRW-24D5MT , NVIDIA GeForce GT1080
Hauppauage Nova-T 500, Nova-T LinHes R8.6.1

Just some suggestions:

Check to see if you have the latest BIOS.

You can actually download audio drivers for this board for Debian from Intel.

Could I suggest you check these two, url http://downloadcenter.intel.com/filter_results.aspx?strTypes=all&ProductID=2372&OSFullName=Debian*+3.1+Linux&lang=eng&strOSs=122&submit=Go%21

I did read on one forum that a lot of user were having problems with this board and Linux. For reference the Audio chipset is Sigmatel STAC9227

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Girkers

I updated the BIOS on the DQ965GF and didn't notice any real improvement.
Given the way alsamixer always hangs, I am increasingly suspicious of the pair of HD-5500 cards I installed after the computer shop assembled and tested the base PC. I tried running Ubuntu Feisty with the HD-5500 cards installed, and it was similarly unstable at audio-related tasks.

It would seem that my problems would probably vanish if I pulled out the HD-5500 cards, but that wouldn't be a very attractive long-term solution.

Hesby,

I am inclined to disagree with you on this count. From my quick searching yesterday there are a number of users experiencing audio problems with that type of mainboard. As you said it is not a long term solution, but taking the HD cards out and trying it would negate an issue between them and the mainboard. My suspicion is that it won't make a difference.

I did a little more digging and would like you to try this if you have the time and inclination.
At a command line and as root:


This should insert the required module into the modules list. Next we need to set up the configuration file.

We need to create a file

and then insert this into the new file.


Then we need to edit the /etc/modules file


and insert the following:


Then we have to make sure everything takes:


Try a reboot and see how you go with alsamixer then, failing that you may want to create the file .asoundrc in the mythtv users home directory. As mythtv user:


Into this new file paste the following:

This is a very basic .asoundrc file and will hopefully get your card working.

Please report your results, cheers and good luck.

Reference

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Girkers

I appreciate the detailed responses, especially from Girkers. I tried those commands, but they offered no improvement while the HD-5500 cards were on the main board.

The big improvement came when I removed both HD-5500 cards and attempted a reinstall using the dragon2 option. Immediately after the post-install reboot, before the second half of the setup, I followed the instructions from another post and blacklisted cx88-alsa. Since the HD-5500s were not there to fight with ALSA, I was finally able to set alsamixer and save the settings. After that I shut down and reinstalled the HD-5500s. From that point, I was reliably getting sound and could continue to work out other issues. The sound quality is still a bit choppy, with little clicks or stutters occurring every few seconds, but it is a lot better than no sound at all.

I just swapped the DQ965GF board out so I could replace it with the DG965OT board, which closely resembles the DG965WH board (Dragon 2.0). The only discernible difference between the DG965WH and my new DG965OT appeared to be the form factor and number of PCI slots.

I still had to blacklist the cx88-alsa module prior to inserting the HD-5500 cards, but once I did, there was none of the stuttering or choppy playback that I had consistently encountered on the old DQ965GF. My impression from all this is that the DQ965GF may be a good business PC, but it is not up for the task of running multiple HD capture cards. Having returned the DQ965GF board already, I won't have much to write about it here anymore.

You do realize that you are replying to a 9 year old thread, right

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Retired KM user (R4 - R6.04); friend to LH users.

It's another Spammer They create an account put some random thing in the signiture line write a reply and eventually replace the sig with a link to one of their SEO clients. I will delete them.
The sentence is from Hesby's post further up.

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