I'm new to Myth and KnoppMyth, though not quite so new to linux. So...

I have an old PC that I have just started playing with to make a Myth box. I have a pcHDTV HD5500 tuner, GeForce FX 5500 graphics card, and onboard AC97 audio. Here are my problems:

When booting with R5D1, the boot process hangs right after "Setting default volumes" message. It just stops, forever.

I can boot with the failsafe option, and install knoppmyth (seemingly) fine, but I get absolutely no audio. If I run alsa_init or alsaconf I get an Oops.

Since the first real message from the kernel is:
EIP is at snd_cx88_capture_volume_get+0xb/0x30 [cx88/alsa]
I am guessing the problem is some conflict between my onboard sound and the sound capture on the HD5500.

Any ideas on how to resolve this? I see the onboard audio controller when I lspci...

help?

Actually, I take that back. The knoppmyth install did not go through without error (the install scripts crash at the same point - creating snddevices and setting default volumes).

I'm open to any suggestions/ideas.

Just for additional information, I went back and downloaded/installed R5C7 on the same hardware. I did not have the boot failure, and everything installed fine, with the exception of the tuner. Audio worked fine (aplay test) right out of the box.

What changed between C7 and D1 that would cause AC97 audio to crash boot/install? Or am I entirely mis-diagnosing the problem here...

http://www.mysettopbox.tv/CHANGELOG.txt



What model of motherboard are you using?
Is this an integrated sound card?
If so can you disable SC in the BIOS and install R5D1 when disabled?
Maybe try searching around the ALSA mailing lists for your model motherboard soundcard. Maybe someone on this board has same model motherboard.

Thanks for the respose.

As for the changelog, I have looked through the changelog, but

isn't very meaningful to me (as in, I'm not clever enough to make use of this information).

I guess specifically I was looking for any information that might give insight into why this change causes a problem for me with AC97 audio, while no one else seems to have this problem at all.

As for the hardware questions: This is a Dell 4600C machine. I have no idea what the actual motherboard make/model/numbers are. But it is an integrated AC97 sound card, and installing D1 in failsafe mode works up until the install scripts actually try to initialize the sound card. with the sound card disabled in the bios, everything seems to run okay, except (of course) no sound. Re-enabling the onboard sound just causes the same problem.

I'll see what I can find on the ALSA mailing lists for AC97 and all...

Alsa is the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture. http://www.alsa-project.org/

Basically soundcard setup for Linux.


Goto Dell's support site and enter in your service tag, and dig around drivers may clue you in to type of soundcard.

Also maybe try installing with SC disabled and enabled it when up and running.

Again, thanks for the reply.

I know what ALSA is, but since I've been an OSS user in the past, I'm not very comfortable with monkeying with alsa. But I guess I will have to. It's just difficult when everything I try to do causes a kernel crash.

I'll try and find the specifics on the hardware tonight (after work).

As for installing with the SC disabled in bios, then enabling it afterwords: I've tried. I boot back up and have no sound card configured (hence, no sound). As soon as I try and do /anything/ in the direction of getting alsa up and running, I get a kernel Oops message. No other alsa commands can be run without locking the machine.

In other threads, I read that if your soundcard (AC97) isn't set up properly on install, to simply (as root) run alsa_init. This also causes the same crash.

I'll post hardware specs if/when I get them.

Thanks again.

It could be as easy as updating ALSA to newest version. I see that RC1.0.12 RC1 is included in R5D1, but on 8/24/2006 RC1.0.12 stable was released.

I have a Dimension 4700 to play with time permitting I may give it a try and see if same behavior.

Awesome - the easy test to see if you have the same issue is just boot the R5D1 cd. If it hangs at "setting default volumes" then I would guess it is the same issue.

I'm reading through the Alsa site now - may manually update alsa just to see if it has any effect. if not, I may try and downgrade (R5C7 seemed okay on the Alsa front).

Again, thanks for your time.

Just an update - checked Dell's support site, but since the machine is (almost) 3 years old, and is far out of warranty, I can get very little information about the original hardware. Basically, I can get the processor type/speed, RAM type/speed, and software bundles. That is /it/...

Back to reading up on alsa...

Alright - new info.

This seems to be some issue with the way alsa is being set up for an Intel8x0 AC97 sound device in conjunction with an HD5500 tuner.

I removed the tuner from the machine, and knoppmyth cd actually boots and seems to install okay. R5C7 did not have this conflict - perhaps because it did not include the HD5500 driver?

So, the question is, will these two pieces of hardware run together? Is there a way to resolve this conflict? Think I'm really going to need help on this one. Still setting up D1 (without the tv tuner), and will try to add the tuner after the fact and see if I can get anywhere.

Hi,

I did have issues when at 128meg, issues went away with 256meg Dell GX1

Mike

Mike,

I apologize, but I'm not quite following your post. Can you give more detail?

Hi,
I have a Dell OptiPlex GX1 that I experiment with before putting any new stuff on my main machine. The Dell was working fine with 128 meg of memory until the C & D releases. It would install without issue however on reboot strange things would occur. Most of the time it would fail to even load. I then added memory to bring it to 256 meg and it became a totally different machine and worked

As for the audio, various Dell's have different audio as they get younger. Try running as root # alsaconf and let it discover the sound driver needed. One thing I did have again with a Dell, is with the I8x0 it would add the "m" so it was thinking I8x0m which would not work. I am not 100% sure of the cure I took however I most likely did a modprobe snd-intel8x0 and also added it to the end of /etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh for future boot up.

Been a while so you may have to deviate a little, but may be worth the try.

Mike

After thought: you will most likely have to run alsamixer afterward to umute stuff.

I booted R5D1 off the CD and was fine, but I don't have a tuner in this box and don't have a 5500 to test.


Given this info looks to be something with hardware combo. You try moving the 5500 to a diffrent PCI slot?