[mythtv-users] Trouble setting up two sound cards in same box

Chuck Connors donny911 at hotmail.com
Wed Mar 17 12:01:05 EST 2004


*Flame retardent disclamier*
I realize that this is not the alsa mailing list, nor is it the knoppmyth 
forums.  I have posted my problem to both the alsa mailing list and the 
knoppmyth forums and receive a bit of help, but my sound problems presist.  
I am petitioning this list for help as I am under the assumption that others 
may be running two bttv cards with multiple sound cards in the same box
*End disclaimer*

Here's the situation.  I am currently running KnoppMyth (a Knoppix based 
distro of Mythtv).  I have the system running fine with one bttv card (an 
ATI TV Wonder VE) and the onboard sound (Sis chipset).  I decided I wanted 
another tv tuner so I bought another bttv card (AITech Wave).  Because both 
of my bttv cards do not have btaudio, I am forced to have a sound card 
dedicated for each card.  I decided to add a Cmedia pci card, and have been 
having troubles ever since.  Thus this message.  At the moment, the onboard 
sound works fine, but I'm not getting anything from the pci card I added.

Here is what I get when I do an 'lspci -v' in regards to the sound cards:

00:02.7 Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] Sound 
Controller (rev a0)
        Subsystem: C-Media Electronics Inc: Unknown device 0300
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 10
        I/O ports at dc00 [size=256]
        I/O ports at d800 [size=64]
        Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2

00:0f.0 Multimedia audio controller: C-Media Electronics Inc CM8738 (rev 10)
        Subsystem: C-Media Electronics Inc CMI8738/C3DX PCI Audio Device
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 12
        I/O ports at b800 [size=256]
        Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

Before I installed the pci card, I did an '/etc/init.d/alsa-config' to get 
the settings for my onboard sound.  Here is what was generated in 
/etc/modutils/alsa-0.9-knoppix :

# --- BEGIN: Generated by ALSACONF, do not edit. ---
# --- ALSACONF version 0.9.0-knoppix ---
alias char-major-116 snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
options snd major=116 cards_limit=1 device_gid=29 device_mode=0660
options snd-intel8x0 index=0
# --- END: Generated by ALSACONF, do not edit. ---

I then disabled onboard sound in the bios and installed the pci card and ran 
alsa-config again to get the settings for the pci card:

# --- BEGIN: Generated by ALSACONF, do not edit. ---
# --- ALSACONF version 0.9.0-knoppix ---
alias char-major-116 snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-cmipci
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
options snd major=116 cards_limit=1 device_gid=29 device_mode=0660
options snd-cmipci index=0
# --- END: Generated by ALSACONF, do not edit. ---

Although the file said not to edit it, I did it anyway :D .. I found this 
page that kind of explained what need to be done to get both cards working:
http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php?page=MultipleCards

Here is my combined /etc/modutils/alsa-0.9-knoppix :

# Start

alias char-major-116 snd
alias char-major-14 soundcore
options snd major=116 cards_limit=2 device_gid=29 device_mode=0660

# Onboard Sound

alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

# Cmedia

alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1
alias sound-service-1-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-1-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-1-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-1-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-1-12 snd-pcm-oss


#Set Card 0 (Onboard)
alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
options snd-intel8x0 index=0

#Set Card 1 (Cmedia)

alias snd-card-1 snd-cmipci
options snd-cmipci index=1

#END

After booting with these settings, lsmod doesn't show the cmedia's module 
(cmipci) as being loaded.

Module                  Size  Used by    Tainted: P
snd-pcm-oss            35588   0  (autoclean)
nvidia               1541056  10  (autoclean)
lirc_serial             7744   1
autofs4                 8724   0  (unused)
af_packet              13448   0
snd-mixer-oss          11160   0  [snd-pcm-oss]
snd-intel8x0           16644   0
snd-pcm                53888   0  [snd-pcm-oss snd-intel8x0]
snd-timer              13352   0  [snd-pcm]
snd-ac97-codec         31776   0  [snd-intel8x0]
snd-page-alloc          4320   0  [snd-intel8x0 snd-pcm]
snd-mpu401-uart         2944   0  [snd-intel8x0]
snd-rawmidi            12256   0  [snd-mpu401-uart]
snd-seq-device          3748   0  [snd-rawmidi]
snd                    25828   0  [snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-intel8x0 
snd-pc
m snd-timer snd-ac97-codec snd-mpu401-uart snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device]
agpgart                34592   3
sis900                 12428   1
tuner                   9472   2  (autoclean)
bttv                   77920   0
i2c-algo-bit            6856   2  [bttv]
i2c-core               12068   0  [tuner bttv i2c-algo-bit]
soundcore               3364   3  [snd bttv]
videodev                5664   4  [bttv]
serial                 51812   0
usb-ohci               18152   0  (unused)
usb-uhci               21836   0  (unused)
usbcore                57376   0  [usb-ohci usb-uhci]
apm                     9768   1
rtc                     6876   0
ext3                   62688   2
jbd                    45524   2  [ext3]

Doing "modprobe snd-card-1" produces:

/lib/modules/2.4.21-xfs/alsa/snd-cmipci.o: init_module: No such device
Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including
invalid IO or IRQ parameters.
      You may find more information in syslog or the output from dmesg
/lib/modules/2.4.21-xfs/alsa/snd-cmipci.o: insmod
/lib/modules/2.4.21-xfs/alsa/snd-cmipci.o failed
/lib/modules/2.4.21-xfs/alsa/snd-cmipci.o: insmod snd-card-1 failed

and the last entry in dmesg is:

C-Media PCI soundcard not found or device busy

I just noticed that my USB controller and the C-media pci card are both 
using
IRQ 12 .  Can this be the cause of the problem, or do they both 'share' IRQ 
12?

I am trying to get the onboard sound to be configured as /dev/dsp0 and the 
cmedia pci card as /dev/dsp1 .  The cmedia pci card was pulled from another 
working knoppix box, and the new bttv card (AITech) is outputting sound on 
it's line out.

Any ideas?  Sorry for the lengthy message, but I wanted to try to answer as 
many questions ahead of time.  I'm fairly new to linux admin, so perhaps my 
problem is basic.  Your help is definitely appreciated!

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