ES1371 volume suddenly extremely low

ES1371 volume suddenly extremely low

[Per von Zweigbergk]

I have an ES1371 chipset based sound card (Sound Blaster PCI 128), which
lately has had very strange problems with sound volume.

Even though all volumes (as seen in aumix) are turned all the way up, the
sound volume in any program tested (including yes > /dev/dsp) has generated
sound which is almost inaudible.

The card has been tested in two machines, tanya and teslacoil. Detailed
information about them can be found in the end of the file (for
readability).

The funny thing is that on teslacoil, it still works as it should with a
reasonable sound volume. It also used to work fine on tanya, but seems to
have stopped working after replacing the CPU fan, although I doubt this is
what caused the problem.



[ TESTING PROCEDURE ]

The testing procedure I used was the best I could come up with. I'm not a
kernel hacker myself, nor a hardware guru of any sort. I'm aware of that
you'll probably want to know more about the problem, but I've done the
best I could to provide relevant information.

I have tried several methods of dead chicken waving, including downgrading
or upgrading kernel versions, as well as moving the card to different PCI
slots, all in vain.

Judging from the output from cat /dev/dsp, sound input levels from a 
microphone seem to be nice and loud.

I haven't tried this card in other systems than Linux, mainly because I
don't have any installed.

I also doubt it's some distribution specific problem. I did test it like
this (paraphrased)

LILO boot: Linux init=/bin/sh
=> Kernel startup messages
# mount -o ro /usr
# modprobe es1371
es1371: version v0.30 time 10:53:35 May 17 2001
es1371: found chip, vendor id 0x1274 device id 0x5880 revision 0x02
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:0f.0
es1371: found es1371 rev 2 at io 0xe400 irq 11
es1371: features: joystick 0x0
ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, id: 0x5354:0x4d04 (Unknown)
# yes > /dev/dsp
=> Sound card probably emitted something, although I couldn't hear it.
^C
# aumix
=> Set all volumes to maximum levels.
# yes > /dev/dsp
=> Sound card emits almost inaudible beep tone.
^C
# umount /usr
SysRq: Sync
SysRq: Reboot
=> End log

Judging from this, there probably is no nasty user space program running
on startup secretly messing up mixer settings. A cold reboot was performed
before starting Linux up in this manner to make sure that no rouge mixer
settings were left in the hardware between reboots.

As I said, although I doubt the information here will be enough to properly
diagnose the problem, I'd be very grateful if someone would reply, even if
only asking me to specify more information. :)



[ MACHINE INFORMATION ]

Here follows the machine information promised:

tanya:
AMD Athlon 1.2 GHz (133 MHz FSB speed)
Abit KT7A motherboard (BIOS version ZT)
Linux 2.4.4 (Also tried with same results with Linux 2.4.2 and Linux 2.4.3)
Other ISA/PCI/AGP hardware:
	PCI RTL8139 network card (8139too.o)
	PCI NE2000 network card (ne2k-pci.o)
	ISA NE2000 network card (ne.o)
	AGP NVidia GeForce 2 GTS (NVdriver)
Output from lspci -v:
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8363/8365 [KT133/KM133] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: ABIT Computer Corp.: Unknown device a401
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0
	Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size\x128M]
	Capabilities: [a0] AGP version 2.0
	Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8363/8365 [KT133/KM133 AGP] (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
	Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 0
	Bus: primary\0, secondary\x01, subordinate\x01, sec-latency=0
	Memory behind bridge: e0000000-e1ffffff
	Prefetchable memory behind bridge: d8000000-dfffffff

00:07.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super South] (rev 40)
	Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686/A PCI to ISA Bridge
	Flags: bus master, stepping, medium devsel, latency 0
	Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

00:07.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. Bus Master IDE (rev 06) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32
	I/O ports at d000 [size\x16]
	Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

00:07.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. UHCI USB (rev 16) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
	Subsystem: Unknown device 0925:1234
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 10
	I/O ports at d400 [size2]
	Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:07.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. UHCI USB (rev 16) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
	Subsystem: Unknown device 0925:1234
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 10
	I/O ports at d800 [size2]
	Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:07.4 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI] (rev 40)
	Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 11
	Capabilities: [68] Power Management version 2

00:09.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139 (rev 10)
	Subsystem: Unex Technology Corp. ND010
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
	I/O ports at dc00 [size%6]
	Memory at e2000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size%6]
	Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8029(AS)
	Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RT8029(AS)
	Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 10
	I/O ports at e000 [size2]

00:0f.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq 5880 AudioPCI (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Ensoniq Creative Sound Blaster AudioPCI128
	Flags: bus master, slow devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
	I/O ports at e400 [sized]
	Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV15 (Geforce2 GTS) (rev a3) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
	Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 4016
	Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 5
	Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size\x16M]
	Memory at d8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size\x128M]
	Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [sizedK]
	Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 1
	Capabilities: [44] AGP version 2.0
contents of /proc/interrupts:
           CPU0
  0:    3113779          XT-PIC  timer
  1:      58475          XT-PIC  keyboard
  2:          0          XT-PIC  cascade
  8:          1          XT-PIC  rtc
  9:      81214          XT-PIC  NE2000
 10:       4998          XT-PIC  usb-uhci, usb-uhci, eth1
 11:      46242          XT-PIC  eth0, es1371
 12:       8652          XT-PIC  PS/2 Mouse
 14:      49779          XT-PIC  ide0
NMI:          0
ERR:          0

teslacoil:
Intel Pentium II 266 MHz
Intel PD440FX motherboard
Linux 2.4.2
Further information available on request.




// Per von Zweigbergk
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Re: ES1371 volume suddenly extremely low

[Thomas Sailer]

Do you know between which kernel versions this happened?
What manufacurer/chip is your codec chip?
Can you compile the driver with ES1371_DEBUG defined
and send me the output of cat /proc/es1371?

Tom
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