Via k9t900 sound on amd64

[ryanCD]

I have a new gigabyte motherboard with a via k8t800 chipset for amd64. The audio is evedently handled by the southbridge, via VT8237, and I've had no luck making it go.
I installed alsa with the ac'97 codec, but nothing shows up in /proc/asound/cards or /dev/sound when I load the module. There is a linux driver on the via website that supports this southbridge, but not the 2.6.x kernels.
I also don't see an entry for this particular via chip in either the OSS or alsa supported cards lists.
So I was wondering, can anyone get this to run? Is there an open source driver that's up to date, or can I use a different driver to get it to go?
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[ballyn]

I think you probably need the via82xx driver. From a quick glance, it looks like the 8235 is supported in that driver, so you might have some luck hacking around to add your model (or look for a patch or different kernel). The driver's in Sound -> ALSA -> PCI -> VIA 82C686A/B, 8233 South Bridge.

[ryanCD]

so, partial succes. I set up alsa and oss-emulation in the kernel, alsa recognises my soundcard and the oss mixer and so forth show up. I used alsa mixer to unmute all the chanells and bring up the volume, no luck, then tried amixer to do the same thing, but there's still no sound.
I was trying to play music through xmms with both the xmms-alsa plugin, and through the oss emulation, no dice with either.

I'll look around for a patch for via's own linux driver for kernel 2.6x, but if anyone can think of something stupid I may be doing, or has had succes with this type of setup, I'd like to hear from you.
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[ballyn]

What drivers are you using? What's your dmesg output look like when it's finding sound hardware?

If you're using OSS, and you load those drivers, you should also get devices like /dev/sound/dsp /dev/sound/mixer, etc. Do you have those?

[ryanCD]

I just switched to the oss via82cxxx_audio driver, and it works nicely.

Dmseg wasn't giving me any information when I loaded or unloaded the alsa driver, and the driver did appear to create mixers, both native and emulated, but no sound. Guess I'll have to figure it out when oss gets phased out.

Thanks for the help,
ryan
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[Redeeman]

aint ur sound very crispy? i have asus k8v deluxe and my sound is crispy

[ryanCD]

I really haven't had problems with the sound since I got the modules working. It does crap up when cpu usage approches 100%, but I imagine that's because the decoders don't have enough cycles to work with in those conditions, as opposed to a problem with the sound hardware its self.
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[jelliebellie]

I had the same exact behavior with Alsa on my Abit mobo (same chipset). Everything built fine, drivers installed, channels unmuted, but no sound.

Since I like Alsa (use it on my other comps) I've decided to install a different sound card, an old Vortex2 card I had laying around.
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jelliebellie@jabber.org

Abit KV8-MAX3, Athlon64 3400+, 1gig RAM, GeForceFX 5950 Ultra, Seagate 160gig SATA

[tjcannell]

I have an K8V, I got no sound at all untill I raised the volume of the first VIA DXS level in AlsaMixer to about 75%. Then all the sounds that have been queued up till then all start playing.

The sound 'crispy'ness was cured on my machine by adding the line :
options snd-via82xx dxs_support=1
to /etc/modules.d/alsa as mentioned in other threads.
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[jelliebellie]

Okay, with a little prodding by tjcannell I tried again with the via82xx.

Using the dxs_support option didn't change anything.

I found another post that mentions using alsamixer to enable "Line-In As Surround" and "Duplicate Front" and then plug the speakers into the Line-in port. Seems like a strange thing to do, but it works.
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jelliebellie@jabber.org

Abit KV8-MAX3, Athlon64 3400+, 1gig RAM, GeForceFX 5950 Ultra, Seagate 160gig SATA