I hope this is the right spot for this.
There are lots of sources for information about how to configure the ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe on board sound card. This is an NForce2 board with RealTek AC97 sound system with 5.1 and lots of goodies.
My Problem: hours and hours of googling and grepping and modprobing resulted in exactly ZERO sound. This included installing the nvidia drivers from here.
Finally though, its running.
Here's what I've learned, in a brief sort of format.
Release R5A16.
1. Install the nVidia drivers from the above link. I found that the networking was unneccessary as forcedeth works fine.
2. edit /etc/hotplug/blacklist and add the following sound modules:
snd-pcm-oss
snd-mixer-oss
snd-intel8x0
snd-ac97-codec
snd-pcm
snd-timer
snd-page-alloc
snd
gameport
snd-mpu401-uart
snd-rawmidi
snd-seq-device
this prevents hotplug from trying to load them over the top of nvsound.
3. edit /etc/alsa/modules and comment out ALL the lines (don't delete them, in case you need them later). Add these three lines (note the last two are really long lines that wrap here. enter as single lines!)
alias sound-slot-0 nvsound
install nvsound /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install nvsound ; sleep 1; /usr/bin/nvmix-reg -f /etc/nvmixrc -L >/dev/null 2>&1 || :
remove nvsound { /usr/bin/nvmix-reg -f /etc/nvmixrc -S >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; }; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove nvsound
4. run "update-modules" and then reboot.
5. you should now have sound. play with nvmixer if you like, seems to have some interesting features.
If this doesn't work
, and still doesn't work, and even more, doesn't work yet again then...
6. Here's the part that took me over a week to find
: take the cover off your box and look on the motherboard for the Front Panel Sound pins. this is the jack where your front panel sound jacks attach (if you have them, which I don't which is the real problem here). According to the manual with this motherboard, pins 5-6 and 9-10 are jumpered from the factory and these jumpers are removed to attach the front panel jacks. IF THESE PINS AREN'T JUMPERED YOU GET NO SOUND FROM THE REAR JACKS!!! The kicker is, my new-in-the-box motherboard did not have these jumpered (ugh). anyway, its located towards the back of the board between the bottom two pci slots and the back plate of the case. check those jumpers.
what I learned: RTFM. duh. also, many software problems are not.... Only go through 2 or 3 software attempts before going back and trying the hardware side again even when you're SURE you've got it right
what I didn't learn: whether the stock ALSA drivers work with this, maybe, when I recover from this marathon, I'll try that out. I do know that the kernel and hotplug detect and try to insert snd-intel8x0, so probably it does.
hth
Andrew