From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Trevor Johnston Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1999 23:44:49 +0000 Subject: Free OSS Problems Message-Id: List-Id: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: linux-sound@vger.kernel.org Hello, I have just joined this list and am not sure if this sort of request is common or not, though I suspect it is. My name is Trevor Johnston, and I'm living in Ireland with a locally built Cyrix 6Mx86 233Mhz machine with 64Mb of memory (2 32Mb chips) and I have a highly unusual problem with sound cards on my computer. Since I first installed Linux last October I have had major problems with Linux (in general) on my machine; the majority of these were only recently traced to overheating of the CPU; my cover is now removed from the machine and an enormous CPU fan installed. But now I have problems with my soundcard... I had a Yamaha OPL-SAx card, for which I obtained the Linux kernel 2.2.2 running under Redhat 5.2. Using isapnptools I tried a multitude of resource settings with this same result - the machine would invariably crash after a random period of time, usually when running X. Thinking the card to simply be incompatible with Linux I got a Genius Sound Maker 3DX2 which has a Crystal CS4236 chip. This was great for a while and worked with kernel 2.0.36 (Redhat 5.2 default). But wen I tried to record (using two different programs) the system crashed almost straight away! All is not lost, though - the trial version of the commercial OSS drivers appear very impressive indeed and installed the card (apparently) perfectly and can now play and record without problems. However, even with commercial OSS I get a message saying: "AD1848: Interrupt test failed (IRQ7)" but the system appears stable, despite the fact that I get the same message with the free drivers. Incidentally, commercial OSS uses completely different resource settings to Windows 95. I tried these settings with free OSS, but no luck, whether running X or not. The fact that commercial OSS works would seem to lessen the likelihood that I have dud hardware, especially considering that I now work for the local shop I purchased my computer from and who have been exceptionally helpful, even going so far as to donate me the Crystal sound card. The best solution would probably be to simply buy commercial OSS, but I really would prefer to go the free route (not because I'm cheap or anything - commercial OSS is very impressive indeed -, I just think free software is a good idea); I am no novice with computers and am an amatuer C programmer who doesn't mind experimenting with drivers (in fact I sort of enjoy it, in small doses). But this situation has tried my patience - apologies is this letter is far too long, but I imagine this is a highly unusual situation. If anyone can offer advise on these problems and could offer solutions on getting either card to work (preferably the Yamaha) I would really, really appreciate it. This is the only computer problem that has ever stumped me and caused me this much hassle. Thank you in advance, Trevor Johnston