SOLVED : Alsaconf not detecting my sound card - es1688/es1867

[simon.tinycore]

I am having problems setting up alsa sound on my old compaq armada 1750 the sound card is an old non plug and play es 1688. In short:

1. alsa, alsa-modules, alsaconf are installed on boot yet when I run "sudo alsaconf" It dosn't detect my soundcard.

2. I install the modules for the sound card  manualy as per the alsa web site

sudo modprobe snd-es1688
sudo modprobe snd-pcm-oss
sudo modprobe snd-mixer-oss
sudo modprobe snd-seq-oss

All modules are loaded successfully

I then run sudo alsaconf
 and it dosn't detect or set up my sound card.
I run > "sudo /usr/local/etc/init.d/alsasound start" it gives me the error "amixer attach default error: No such file or directory    Something went wrong, sound was not set up"

Question : What am I doing wrong? This is a list of loaded modules:

Module                  Size  Used by    Not tainted
snd_seq_dummy            648  0
snd_seq_oss            15364  0
snd_seq_midi_event      2624  1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                26036  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_pcm_oss            24484  0
snd_mixer_oss           8648  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_es1688              2176  0
snd_opl3_lib            4888  1 snd_es1688
snd_hwdep               3004  1 snd_opl3_lib
snd_es1688_lib          6704  1 snd_es1688
snd_pcm                37628  2 snd_pcm_oss,snd_es1688_lib
snd_timer              10564  3 snd_seq,snd_opl3_lib,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc          4016  1 snd_pcm
snd_mpu401_uart         2780  1 snd_es1688
snd_rawmidi            10004  1 snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device          2808  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_opl3_lib,snd_rawmidi
snd                    26200 13 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_es1688,snd_opl3_lib,snd_hwdep,snd_es1688_lib,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
soundcore               2640  1 snd
cdc_acm                10364  2
vfat                    5596  0
fat                    30220  1 vfat
joydev                  5808  0
squashfs               14724 30
3c59x                  22084  0
pcmcia                 12756  0
scsi_wait_scan           276  0
ramzswap               10240  1
yenta_socket           13432  3
rsrc_nonstatic          5780  1 yenta_socket
loop                    8068 60
pcmcia_core            17332  3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic



 

[Rich]

Hi simon.tinycore
Read these two threads, they should provide some useful information.

http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=8927.msg48628#msg48628
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=8963.msg48785#msg48785

[simon.tinycore]

Thanks for the links. After reading through them I learn't the following:

1. Alsaconf needs to run successfully to set up the soundcard to run with Alsa.
One of the links seems to imply that the following files and Directories are affected by alsaconf

A.etc/modprobe.conf  B.etc/asound.state  C. opt/alsa

Perhaps I can manually write the correct values to these files

2. One post said to install alsa-plugins - I will see if this makes any difference

After I run Alsaconf I can do the other steps. Does anyone know why Alsaconf is not detecting my card?

[Jason W]

Did you probe for legacy cards in alsaconf after it stated no soundcards found?  I assume you did,
but since you didn't specify I thought I would ask.

[aus9]

hi

personally I don't like alsaconf but each to his her own ok?

try the wiki section called using alsasound

http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:setting_up_sound

[simon.tinycore]

Yes I did try the Legacy section in alsaconf yet it didn't detect the card.

I will try to manually configure tomorrow when I have some time,

Thanks for the links.

[tinypoodle]

Do you have any BIOS settings regarding sound card?

[j_75080]

Hello simon.tinycore

I just installed sound on my ThinkPad 365XD with ES 1688 sound chipset.  After loading the modules per ALSA's web site, I did not have sound either. 

Then, I took ALSA's next step in their procedure, i.e. running alsamixer (alsamixergui in Tiny Core).  I found my Master volume was set at minimum.  After raising this to max, I had sound.  The settings in alsamixer can be saved by executing the following command in a terminal after making the settings:
       sudo alsactl store

hope this helps,
j_75080

ALSA's web site procedure:
http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Module-es1688

[j_75080]

Hello simon.tinycore

The reason alsaconf does not find the ES 1688 sound chipset is due to alsaconf is looking for a pci card and the soundchip is not on a pci card, but on the motherboard.

j_75080

[simon.tinycore]

OK thanks everyone for your suggestions and replies. I have managed to solve this problem.  This is how I did it.

First, as the poodle said > Check bios sound card settings > this I did and found out that my Compaq Armada 1750 actually has a es1867 sound card (although I think that it is also compable with the es1688). I wrote down the IRQ and DMA etc settings on a label and stuck it to the underside of the laptop. I also added " pnpbios=off " to the kernel options part of the grub "menu.lst" (This is a vital step as it interferes with the sound card on these old compaq laptops)
The line looks something like this:

i.e. kernel /boot/bzImage quiet tce=hda2 home=hda2 opt=hda2 pnpbios=off  

Second I made sure the following extentions were loaded onBoot.
alsa-modules-2.6.33.3-tinycore.tcz
alsa-config.tcz
alsa.tcz
Also but probably not needed alsamixergui.tcz


Third , after much googling, looking on various forums, and trail and error, I added the following lines to /opt/bootlocal.sh so that the modules were loaded on boot.

sudo modprobe soundcore
sudo modprobe snd-es18xx isapnp=0 port=0x0220 mpu_port=0x330 irq=5 dma=1

I rebooted, and did an "lsmod" just to check that the modules were loaded. They were!

Fourthly, I ran "sudo alsamixer", and saw that the soundcard was detected, I unmuted everything that was muted. And pressed escape.

Lastly I ran "sudo alsactl store" and added the following to my filetool.lst

etc/asound.state

I also found that VLC Media Player seemed to play mp3 OGG so I added it as a onBoot extention. Tinycore is such fun when you get it right. I don't even feel like a "Newb" anymore - How about an upgrade to "pro" or "expert" !