[ale] Sound weirdness

[Bjorn Dittmer-Roche]

On Fri, 9 Jul 2004 griffisb at bellsouth.net wrote:

> > >       The weirdness comes in when I try to play games, or play music with XMMS
> > > at Shoutcast. I just get static. No sound at all. I don't think it's a
> > > hardware problem as the connection between the soundcard and my Boston
> > > Accoustics soundsystem works fine when playing CDs and TV. I don't know where
> > > to start looking for a software problem.
> >
> > Um, you get static or silence? If "static", my guess would be driver or
> > software endianness issue, which is the most common cause. If silence, I
> > would guess a hardware issue, although the fact that other sounds are
> > getting through the card is strange. Perhaps the SC is damaged.
> >
> > >       Any pointers? KMix shows the sound is up, not muted. XMMS is using the
> > > Artsd driver four audio output. This one has me beat.
> >
> > it's worth trying without artsd. artsd always causes me trouble.
> >
> > 	bjorn
>
> Okay, I ruled out hardware. I booted up into Windows (it's been booted
> into SuSE so much, I forgot it was dual-boot). Sound worked fine in
> Windows using Realplayer - so hardware is good.
>
> Now to actually read the sound sections of the SuSE users guide. It used
> to work before the box was moved, it doesn't work now - but that must be
> purely coincidental. Anyway - I get good sound in KsCD and through the
> TV card, but get static when playing games and using XMMS. That is just
> strange.

Did you try killing artsd? try using some software that accesses /dev/dsp*
directly rather than using artsd or enlightnment or whatever. (I think
this is an option in XMMS). Note that playing CD's will only go through
the soundcard's mixer, not the a/d converter on the soundcard. (some CD
player software tries to use the a/d but they run in to trouble reading
the disk reliably)

	bjorn