Possible Bug: drivers/sound/maestro.c

Possible Bug: drivers/sound/maestro.c

[Michael B. Trausch]

Hello,

I've been using this driver and this hardware since I started running
Kernel 2.2.16.  It _works_, however, whenever I have a program that I
compile that's especially large (the kernel, glibc, etc.), or copy/move
lots of files around, the driver starts to fuzz lots of the sound going to
the card - even after the activity causing the load has stopped.  It
happens in both the left and the right channel, and the only way to
resolve it is to kill the process with /dev/dsp open (typically mpg123),
and then start it again.

I attempted to see if I could get into it and maybe fix it and try things
out myself, however, I got into the driver file and *wow*.  I only know a
little bit of C, and I've never messed with anything that's not an
application program (I was attempting to write an OS for quite some time,
but I gave up... Intel is just too freakin' hard to write for, and I don't
have the money for anything else).

As it sits, I could not even start to make changes, I didn't understand
anything in the file, as to what it was or whatnot.  Otherwise, I'd have
attempted and maybe been successful enough to put a patch in to the list.

I don't know if anyone else here runs with that card, or whatnot.  This
one is brand new, it's PCI ID is as follows, from /proc/pci:

  Bus  0, device  10, function  0:
    Multimedia audio controller: ESS Technology ES1978 Maestro 2E (rev 16).
      IRQ 11.
      Master Capable.  Latency=64.  Min Gnt=2.Max Lat=24.
      I/O at 0xec00 [0xecff].

I would be happy to place it in a static bag and small box if anyone cared
to work on it, if someone wanted to borrow it to write for it.  It is my
only sound board right now, I used to have an SB16 (ISA) but I couldn't
use that becuase my video board (ATI, see below) would make weird noises
on it whenever the display had major things going on in X.

Bus  1, device   0, function  0:
  VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc 3D Rage Pro AGP 1X/2X (rev 92).
    Master Capable.  Latency=64.  Min Gnt=8.
    Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe0000000 [0xe0ffffff].
    I/O at 0xc000 [0xc0ff].
    Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe2000000 [0xe2000fff].

Thank you much!

	- Mike

===========================================================================
Michael B. Trausch                                    fd0man@crosswinds.net
Avid Linux User since April, '96!                           AIM:  ML100Smkr

              Contactable via IRC (DALNet) or AIM as ML100Smkr
===========================================================================

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Re: Possible Bug: drivers/sound/maestro.c

[Georg Nikodym]

>>>>> "MBT" == Michael B Trausch <fd0man@crosswinds.net> writes:

 MBT> I've been using this driver and this hardware since I started
 MBT> running Kernel 2.2.16.  It _works_, however, whenever I have a
 MBT> program that I compile that's especially large (the kernel,
 MBT> glibc, etc.), or copy/move lots of files around, the driver
 MBT> starts to fuzz lots of the sound going to the card - even after
 MBT> the activity causing the load has stopped.  It happens in both
 MBT> the left and the right channel, and the only way to resolve it
 MBT> is to kill the process with /dev/dsp open (typically mpg123),
 MBT> and then start it again.

FWIW, I too was having this kind of problem.  When I starting living
on 2.4.x kernels the problem went away.  Also gone were sound dropping
out when I busied my machine with compiles things.

Of course, I'm omitting the irrelevant detail of the absence of the
pci_enable_dev() call 2.4.0-testX where X<12 which caused the driver
to not work at all.
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Re: Possible Bug: drivers/sound/maestro.c

[Michael B. Trausch]

On Fri, 26 Jan 2001, Georg Nikodym wrote:
> 
> FWIW, I too was having this kind of problem.  When I starting living
> on 2.4.x kernels the problem went away.  Also gone were sound dropping
> out when I busied my machine with compiles things.
> 

2.4.0 still does it - not as often, but it still does it.  I'm compiling a
*lot* of software right now and I find that I just have to feed mpg123 my
songs one at a time by hand.  Seems that when it closes /dev/dsp, it goes
away, upon the reopen.

If I had a clue about the source code I'd make an attempt at figuring it
out.  I just don't have a clue ;P.

Right now I'm listening to the radio so I have continuious music, 'cuz I'm
working on creating rolling out my own system and I can't keep switching
songs manually, and the distortion gets to be too much even at low volume
levels.

	- Mike

===========================================================================
Michael B. Trausch                                    fd0man@crosswinds.net
Avid Linux User since April, '96!                           AIM:  ML100Smkr

              Contactable via IRC (DALNet) or AIM as ML100Smkr
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Re: Possible Bug: drivers/sound/maestro.c

[Barry K. Nathan]

Michael B. Trausch wrote:
[snip]
> 2.4.0 still does it - not as often, but it still does it.  I'm compiling a
[snip]

I haven't done any sound stuff with 2.4 on my Dell Inspiron 5000e, but I
have this problem (or a similar one, anyway -- sometimes the sound becomes
distorted or comes only through one speaker) under both Linux 2.2 and
Win2K. If it was just Linux, I'd assume it was a driver problem, but the
fact that I'm getting very similar misbehavior from both Linux and Win2K
(I don't have Win98 or ME on the machine, so I can't test that) makes me
really wonder...

-Barry K. Nathan <barryn@pobox.com>
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Re: Possible Bug: drivers/sound/maestro.c

[Tom Sightler]

> I haven't done any sound stuff with 2.4 on my Dell Inspiron 5000e, but I
> have this problem (or a similar one, anyway -- sometimes the sound becomes
> distorted or comes only through one speaker) under both Linux 2.2 and
> Win2K. If it was just Linux, I'd assume it was a driver problem, but the
> fact that I'm getting very similar misbehavior from both Linux and Win2K

Just to add a note, my Dell Inspiron 5000e also exhibits this problem under
both Linux and W2K.  I've never heard it happen under Win98 but I spend very
little time actually running that OS (I occasionally boot it to troubleshoot
client issues that are still running on Win95/98) compared to the others so
that probably doesn't mean a lot.

I've also tried the ALSA drivers on this machine but have never has success
in even getting their Maestro driver to work on this machine.  I do have
ALSA drivers working on several desktop machines at home and have always had
good success with them, but they fail miserably for me on this laptop.  I
haven't tried the absolute latest version released earlier this week though,
maybe over the weekend.

> (I don't have Win98 or ME on the machine, so I can't test that) makes me
> really wonder...

It makes me wonder as well, maybe I'll try to force myself to use Win98 for
a while and see if I can force the problem to occur there as well.

Later,
Tom



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Re: Possible Bug: drivers/sound/maestro.c

[Michael B. Trausch]

On Fri, 26 Jan 2001, Barry K. Nathan wrote:
> 
> I haven't done any sound stuff with 2.4 on my Dell Inspiron 5000e, but I
> have this problem (or a similar one, anyway -- sometimes the sound becomes
> distorted or comes only through one speaker) under both Linux 2.2 and
> Win2K. If it was just Linux, I'd assume it was a driver problem, but the
> fact that I'm getting very similar misbehavior from both Linux and Win2K
> (I don't have Win98 or ME on the machine, so I can't test that) makes me
> really wonder...
> 

It works PERFECTLY under WinME, when WinME decides that it wants to work,
anyway.  If you ask me, $90 for just working sound (and a pretty crappy
rest of the system) is too much.  It was a complete waste of
money.  Although it did allow me to download the slackware ISO so that I
could put some Linux back on here when I got my new hard drive, Since
Win2k stopped running when I upgraded to 30gb from 4gb.

The mixer under WinME also seems to actually respond better, I get the
full capability of the Maestro mixer under WinME.  If I turn it all the
way up under Linux, I still have to turn the speakers damn near all the
way up just to hear it with my baseline on the subwoofer.  That's not my
concern tho, since I can compensate with the speakers (they have an
excellent amp on them).

	- Mike

===========================================================================
Michael B. Trausch                                    fd0man@crosswinds.net
Avid Linux User since April, '96!                           AIM:  ML100Smkr

              Contactable via IRC (DALNet) or AIM as ML100Smkr
===========================================================================

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Re: Possible Bug: drivers/sound/maestro.c

[Alan Cox]

> way up under Linux, I still have to turn the speakers damn near all the
> way up just to hear it with my baseline on the subwoofer.  That's not my
> concern tho, since I can compensate with the speakers (they have an
> excellent amp on them).
> 

Some AC97 codecs have external amplifier controls and we dont yet handle
those properly for all cards. Thats probably why you need your 2nd level
of amp (the one in the speskers) to compensate
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Re: Possible Bug: drivers/sound/maestro.c

[Zach Brown]

> > have this problem (or a similar one, anyway -- sometimes the sound becomes
> > distorted or comes only through one speaker) under both Linux 2.2 and
> > Win2K. If it was just Linux, I'd assume it was a driver problem, but the

This is a long-standing bug with the maestro2 driver.  

My current theory is that its a race condition where the APUs get
confused while we update their control memory, but this doesn't make
total sense.  Some of the bug reports I get are implying that the sound
is breaking when we're not touching the apu's control mem.  Maybe
implying a nastier silicon bug..

I've been meaning to try implementing a work around to the theoretical
bug, but I've always had trouble triggering it :/

The fun part of this (and why you would see the bug in win2k) is that
the maestro2 is very poorly documented.  I've never heard of anyone
having full docs on the APUs, including the people I've talked to at ESS.
They bought the part from another company.. (and thankfully axed it in
the maestro3)

so we're stabbing in the dark.

- z
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