Problems with ALSA intel8x0 driver

From: Jesse F. Hughes (jesse_at_phiwumbda.org)
Date: 11/28/03


Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 10:46:09 +0100

Hey ho.

Ever since upgrading from Slackware 9.0 to 9.1, my soundcard is flaky.
Often, when I try to send something to the card (through whatever
means), I get no sound and the program sits and waits for a response.
For instance, if I type 'aplay <sound>', then aplay does not exit and
no sound comes out.

In the syslog, I find:

Nov 23 15:28:22 euclid kernel: ALSA intel8x0.c:599: codec_read 0: semaphore is not ready for register 0x2c

A reboot typically fixes the problem. I haven't found any means of
fixing it short of a reboot. I hate rebooting to fix something in
Linux. It's an admission of defeat and ignorance.

I've appended the output of lsmod below.

I had no problems at all with 9.0, but of course 9.1 uses alsa, and
9.0 didn't. Still, I've used alsa on other machines in the past and
always found it pretty reliable. I don't know how to find the problem
here, however. Is it some sort of conflict? Where do I look?

Thanks. Let me know what information I failed to give and I'll
provide it. Everything on the laptop is fairly straight out of the
Slackware box.

jesse@euclid:~$ lsmod
Module Size Used by Not tainted
i830 63744 3
snd-pcm-oss 37252 0
snd-mixer-oss 11992 0 [snd-pcm-oss]
parport_pc 14724 1 (autoclean)
lp 6752 0 (autoclean)
parport 23264 1 (autoclean) [parport_pc lp]
uhci 24496 0 (unused)
usbcore 58400 1 [uhci]
snd-intel8x0 17156 0
snd-pcm 55904 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-intel8x0]
snd-timer 13252 0 [snd-pcm]
snd-ac97-codec 37240 0 [snd-intel8x0]
snd-page-alloc 6004 0 [snd-intel8x0 snd-pcm]
snd-mpu401-uart 3136 0 [snd-intel8x0]
snd-rawmidi 12512 0 [snd-mpu401-uart]
snd-seq-device 3920 0 [snd-rawmidi]
snd 27460 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-intel8x0 snd-pcm snd-timer snd-ac97-codec snd-mpu401-uart snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device]
soundcore 3332 4 [snd]
ds 6568 2
yenta_socket 10368 2
pcmcia_core 40032 0 [ds yenta_socket]
ide-scsi 9424 0
e1000 67136 1
agpgart 39576 12
apm 9640 2

Here's what /proc/pci says about the card.

  Bus 0, device 31, function 5:
    Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 3).
      IRQ 5.
      I/O at 0x1c00 [0x1cff].
      I/O at 0x18c0 [0x18ff].
      Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe8080800 [0xe80809ff].
      Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe8080400 [0xe80804ff].

There are other devices on IRQ 5, including SMBus (?) and a CardBus
Bridge. I don't know if these could cause a conflict. I *could* go
back to the OSS drivers, but I'm fond of ALSA and don't really want to
go back.

-- 
Jesse Hughes
"Surround sound is going to be increasingly important in future
offices."
  -- Microsoft marketing manager displays his keen insight


Relevant Pages

  • Re: How do you get the ac97 sound driver installed (and running)
    ... ALSA, ... The newer kernels are ... ALSA ready (slackware at least) I had a tough time with embedded sound ... ALSA and the sound problems evaporated: ...
    (comp.os.linux.hardware)
  • Re: Problems with ALSA intel8x0 driver
    ... I had a few problems with Slackware 8.1 and 9.0 on an IBM Thinkpad ... Could never get the sound to work quite right with all ... what I was used to and not familiar with ALSA) and the ALSA pnp at the ... >A reboot typically fixes the problem. ...
    (comp.os.linux.hardware)
  • Re: ALSA: no sound, no error!
    ... Jonathan Kaye wrote: ... The sound came back after stopping alsa, ... >>removing the file asound.state and then starting alsa again. ... > and you have to reset the mixer every time you reboot. ...
    (Debian-User)
  • Re: ALSA: no sound, no error!
    ... > Ah, that made sound work. ... The sound came back after stopping alsa, ... > removing the file asound.state and then starting alsa again. ... and you have to reset the mixer every time you reboot. ...
    (Debian-User)
  • Re: ALSA: no sound, no error!
    ... And I can't see anything in bootup log about anything ... > (and, ough, try and reboot, if everything else fails) ... Ah, that made sound work. ... removing the file asound.state and then starting alsa again. ...
    (Debian-User)