I've not had any luck fixing the sound driver for the onboard sound chip of the Asus A8N-VM CSM motherboard. The Asus motherboard manual says the sound chip is an AD1986a (Analog Devices, I believe).

I downloaded and compiled the ALSA drivers version 1.0.11rc4 per the instructions in the HOW-TO section of the ALSA website. It didn't help. The sound still does not work. This is even after using the mixer utility and unmuting all the audio channels.

Should the Plug And Play be turned on or off in the motherboard BIOS?

I have seen that there is a special sound patch file for the Analog Devices chips right in the ALSA driver directory structure. It's called patch_analog.c. This file seems to be a specialized driver for the AD1986a chip. It calls it out in the top few lines of the code. There MUST be a way to get this file into the kernel so it will talk to the AD1986a. Does anyone know how ALSA drivers work? Do I need to patch this file into to something? If yes, could you give the commands and don't leave out any steps, please?

Eric

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KnoppMyth R5.5, Asus A8N-VM CSM (nvidia 6150 onboard video), AMD Athlon 64 dual-core 4200+, two 1GB sticks DDR 400, HD-3000 HDTV card, PVR-150 card, Iguanaworks RS-232 IR receiver/transmitter, Pioneer DVR-110 DVD burner

Before retrying the http://quaggaspace.org/a8nvm/ patch file, I downloaded and compiled the ALSA drivers version 1.0.11rc4 per the instructions in the HOW-TO section of the ALSA website. After a reboot and an unmute of the sound channels, I got sound out of the onboard sound chips! (same KnoppMyth kernel 2.6.15.chw-2)

I'm now playing MP3s with the Mythtv music player and getting the same high pitched squeel along with it that I've read about in other people's posts.

I recompiled the ALSA divers, libraries, utilities and amixer application and was able to unmute all the audio channels using the ALSA amixer command line application. The ALSA how-to docs say that all the channels are muted by default so you have to unmute them.

So, now to tackle the squeel...

Eric

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KnoppMyth R5.5, Asus A8N-VM CSM (nvidia 6150 onboard video), AMD Athlon 64 dual-core 4200+, two 1GB sticks DDR 400, HD-3000 HDTV card, PVR-150 card, Iguanaworks RS-232 IR receiver/transmitter, Pioneer DVR-110 DVD burner

Try the latest 1.0.11rc5 release as this fixes all of the issues with this board.

Steve

Hey, thanks for the tip. You were SO right. The new ALSA version 1.0.11rc5 did it.

After a nice easy series of make commands and the sound is on with no squeel.

Eric

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KnoppMyth R5.5, Asus A8N-VM CSM (nvidia 6150 onboard video), AMD Athlon 64 dual-core 4200+, two 1GB sticks DDR 400, HD-3000 HDTV card, PVR-150 card, Iguanaworks RS-232 IR receiver/transmitter, Pioneer DVR-110 DVD burner

Pleased to hear it. The sound hack has been a real pain. Now I need to make sure that my sound profile enables both AC3 and PCM passthough to the SPDIF as well as being able to drive 2ch speakers. Had it working with Alsa 1.0.11rc2 and the sound fix hack.

Steve

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OpenMedia Limited
New Zealands first open source PVR based on Knoppmyth
http://www.openmedia.co.nz for details

I'm about to dive into the whole MythTV thing, and I was pretty much settled on getting the same motherboard you have, but I'm worried about SPDIF output. The ASUS website says you need to buy a separate little doodad to connect the internal SPDIF connector to an external coax. I haven't found any place to buy such a thing. Did you find one, or are you using the six-channel output? I'd prefer the digital out to let my receiver do the decoding.

-Joel

At present, I'm still in the testing stage of my Mythtv HDTV setup so I'm using just the 2 channel output of the light green audio connector at the back of the motherboard.

Yes, if you want to use the SPDIF output, you need the Asus output module (sold separately). The output module has a fiber optic connector and a 1/8th inch phono connector as outputs.

I suppose I should order one now, also.

Eric

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KnoppMyth R5.5, Asus A8N-VM CSM (nvidia 6150 onboard video), AMD Athlon 64 dual-core 4200+, two 1GB sticks DDR 400, HD-3000 HDTV card, PVR-150 card, Iguanaworks RS-232 IR receiver/transmitter, Pioneer DVR-110 DVD burner

Hey, I just noticed in your signature you list out the whole set of components you're using, and it sounds like pretty much the same setup I was planning to use (though I had been thinking about the Athlon 3200+). Have you found that system to be fast enough for HD playback? For me, if it's not as good as just watching the TV itself, I'll have to choose speedier hardware. Stuttering, or other general slowness will be really annoying to me, so I'll be interested to hear your experience as you progress with your setup.

And, let me know if you find a place to buy that SPDIF thingee.

-Joel

Joelmr,

I bought one of these SPDIF gadgets from excaliberpc.com.
It was $15.00 (USD) with free ship.
I haven't used it yet. I'm still trying to get a stable install of KnoppMyth going and am trying to get analog sound much less digital.

W