smaller sound card issues

[tom boucher]

Thanks to alll who helped get my soundcard up. I think I am down to the tweaking phase. I have Mandrakelunux 10.1 with KDE4.2. The sound card is an ISA ESS1869. I had to run "alsaconf" in order to get the card to work. Here is the card setup: E/A port= 0x220, IRQ=5, DMA=1, MPU-EA= 0x330. I know this because of when it was configured. As to where to find it now, I have no idea.
The issue is that it plays the test sound in KDE Sound System file. Computer .wav files and the system bell do not test or play. Music CDs do not play. Also, "test Midi player" under KDE Sound System does not do anything. When I look at the hardware tab under KDE sound system, it is on auto detect, and no selection of a midi device is possible. Any ideas?

[neil gow's apprentice]

have you tried experimenting with some of those other hardware options from the dropdown to see if they make any difference?

[sarumont]

Run kmixer (or whatever KDE's mixer is called) and make sure your PCM volumes are turned up. Play with the other volumes, as well, like CD, etc.

[jeremy1701]

Sarumont might be on to something there. Make sure to check your gain level. On both of my MDK boxes, the defualt setting was inaudibly low.

Jeremy

[tom boucher]

The volumes are all the way up. I am not able to hear CDs or system sounds. I also tried to go with the other hardware options, open threaded, auto detect, etc.... when I hit apply the system does a lot of loud crackling since the volume is up so high, but then it stops and there is no sound. I did get an error once, "artd" when I was switching the different sound hardware devices. Nothing else though.

[jeremy1701]

Tom, If I remember correctly, you said you also had sndconfig?

Jeremy

[sarumont]

Have you tried restarting KDE? If you got an artsd error, that could be your problem, too. artsd is KDE's sound daemon, which takes sounds from multiple programs and runs them through one stream to the soundcard.

[tom boucher]

Yes, both sndconfig and alsaconf downloaded with Mandrakelinux 10.1. I can not get the sndconfig to work though. I just can't find the correct combination of settings for the ESS 1869 card. It attempted to let me try to install other cards at one time, but that was in a blind attempt at trying to get it to work. As far as KDE, when mentioned to restart it, do you mean to simply restart the computer or is there another method of starting just KDE? With the sound daemon, I have seen that in the KDE Sound System hardware tab. Is that the hardware I should set it too? Or, should I set it to auto detect or Linux Sound System.... ? I appreciate the information. I am new and feel like I have exhasusted my hunches with this. At the moment I am reading up on some midi information and have not tried to use alsoconf or sndconfig. I am trying to keep it clean until we find a resolution or something to try. Thanks again.

[sarumont]

You can restart KDE by hitting CTRL+ALT+BKSPACE.

[tom boucher]

the system restarted, but the sound is the same. No midi is listed in the hardware unerder KDE 3.2 Sound System. Should I install Pmidi or Kmid or something similar?