Onboard sound on Asus K8N-E (realtek alc850)

reub2000 · Guru Joined: 31 Jan 2004 Posts: 364

My new computer has an Asus K8N-E, which uses a realtek alc850. I installed gentoo, compiling alsa with the intel8x0 driver (because that's what I saw knoppix using). Using an opical cable I hooked it up to my yamaha htr-5740 (which is hooked up to a set of athena micra6s). I raised all of the bars in alsamixer, trying to get some sound. I also plugged in a pair of headphones, trying to see if they would work, repeated, to see if I could get any sound out of them. I didn't get a single sound out of them.

Is there anything I need to do? Is this just a troublesome peice of hardware, and I should just get sound card?

widan · Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2005 5:32 pm Post subject:

You raised the level, but did you unmute the channels ? In alsamixer, if the bar still has an "MM" above it, it's muted and won't work. Type "M" to unmute the channel.

reub2000 · Guru Joined: 31 Jan 2004 Posts: 364

So I unmuted everything, and I get sound out my headphones, but no sound from my reciver. The last item is external amplifier, which I asume means digital output, I unmute it and mute it with no effect.

widan · Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2005 6:37 pm Post subject:

I have never tried to use the digital out myself, but you could try some of the suggestions at http://www.wlug.org.nz/NForce2Notes under "Digital setup". They are for nForce 2, but it should work on the nForce 3 too.

reub2000 · Guru Joined: 31 Jan 2004 Posts: 364

My understanding is that nvidia closed down it's sound department after the release of the nForce 2. So what my board has is probably all provided by asus. And it's an nForce 4 mobo.

Would that /etc/modprobe.conf be at all used if it's compiled into the kernel?