topic title: Sound Has Disappeared on Soundblaster CT4700 PCI128
Posts: 39
frogprince
Joined: 08 Nov 2012
#1
Hi: At some point after a recent update, my sound quit. I'm running a basic Soundblaster CT4700 PCI128 sound card, which shows up as being supported on the ALSA site, but I can't even get ALSA to run. I searched and found:


========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"antix.freeforu ms.org/post32517.html?hilit=snd_mixer_attach#p32517"
linktext was:"antix.freeforu ms.org/post32517.h ... ach#p32517"
====================================


and tried to follow that. What I found was:

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aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Noise.wav
ALSA lib confmisc.c:768:(parse_card) cannot find card '0'
ALSA lib conf.c:4241:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_driver returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib confmisc.c:392:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
ALSA lib conf.c:4241:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib confmisc.c:1251:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
ALSA lib conf.c:4241:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib conf.c:4720:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
aplay: main:682: audio open error: No such file or directory
mikeb@antiX1:~
$ cat /proc/asound/cards
--- no soundcards ---
mikeb@antiX1:~
$ aplay -L
null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
But I was unable to figure out the correct driver to modprobe. Can someone give me a little guidance here?

Thanks in advance.
Posts: 2,238
dolphin_oracle
Joined: 16 Dec 2007
#2
there was an update not to long ago that broke a package called oss-compat, which is used to provide sound effects from some of the older games in antix. The breakage caused a problem with alsa loading at boot. It also caused a lag at boot right around the step for populating udev.

You can safely remove the oss-compat package. I think the only thing that uses it is bejeweled, and the games still plays, just no sound.
Posts: 173
DeepDayze
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
#3
That card uses the es1370 module you can check to see if that module is loaded:

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lsmod | grep es1370
Posts: 39
frogprince
Joined: 08 Nov 2012
#4
dolphin_oracle: Thanks for your suggestion; I ran apt-get remove oss-compat, and rebooted. Audacious then ran without error messages,
but still with no sound. I moved the sound output cable from the sound card to the onboard audio, and voila! sound.

DeepDayze: I opened the antiX Control Center, clicked on Adjust Mixer, and when the also gui appeared, hit F2 for system information,
and then /proc/asound/cards. Both the onboard ALI5451 and ENS1370 drivers were shown. So I ran:

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 lsmod | grep ens1370
snd_ens1370            14413  1 
snd_rawmidi            12946  2 snd_ens1370,snd_seq_midi
snd_pcm                50892  4 snd_ac97_codec,snd_ens1370,snd_ali5451
snd_page_alloc          5091  2 snd_pcm,snd_ens1370
snd                    36962  14 snd_ac97_codec,snd_timer,snd_pcm,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_ens1370,snd_seq_device,snd_seq_midi,snd_ali5451
gameport                5365  1 snd_ens1370
which looks good. /dev populate ran much faster at reboot, but did generate an error message about"sound codec 'AC97 not valid".
Since I'm listening to the system play a radio station right now, I'm not sure what that's about.

Running F6 in the alsa gui to select the sound card instead of the onboard chip shows the sound card as having been selected, but
the actual physical output doesn't change. So..is there a config file somewhere that I need to edit, or ?

Thanks for all your help!
Posts: 2,238
dolphin_oracle
Joined: 16 Dec 2007
#5
go ahead and run

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cat /proc/asound/cards
and post the output. Having more than one sound card is a classic problem, and its likely your system is seeing the wrong one (for you) as the default. If the cards all show up, you should be able to make a .asoundrc file in your home folder that will point to the card you want.

the contents of .asoundrc would then look like this:

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#replace the number in the phrase"card 1" with the number of the soundcard you wish to use
#make sure to replace both instances
   pcm.!default {
           type hw
           card 1
        }

        ctl.!default {
           type hw           
           card 1
        }
replacing the"card 1" statements with whatever card number provided by the

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cat /proc/asound/cards
more info here:
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.mepiscommunity.org/doc_mx/sound.html"
linktext was:"http://www.mepiscommunity.org/doc_mx/sound.html"
====================================


look under trouble shooting. the doc is technically for mx, but the alsa sound system is the same in both mx and antix.
Posts: 173
DeepDayze
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
#6
You can disable the onboard sound if you want to use the Soundblaster. To do this you'll have to go into the BIOS and in the configuration section look for something like"Onboard Audio" and set that to Disabled.