Is mandrake not compatible with certain laptop?

**rsoj** · 12-05-2004

Was installing win xp and mandrake on a Dell laptop inspiron 8500
2.2ghz, 512 mb, 40gb of hhd.
Win is properly installed, mandrake got installed as well but whenever i choose to load mandrake, my laptop makes an acute sound (unbearable) it's just impossible to wait and see if mandrake is going to continue loading.

Anyone who have an idea on it?

**lakerdonald** · 12-05-2004

try reinstalling mandrake

**bigtomrodney** · 12-06-2004

I've had Several Linux flavours on my i8500. I'm also a big Mandrake user so I've had 9.0,9.1,9.2,10.0, and now 10.1 installed. I've had troubles but next to none with 10.1CE.

Use Mandrake 10.1 and you'll have no bother at all. In fact most trouble I ever had was with nVidia drivers, DVD crap and a USB drive that was allergic to mandrake.

However like I said all of my troubles were fixed in this release and it runs like a beast even with Ksmoothdock and a Karamba theme.

**bigtomrodney** · 12-06-2004

Actually it just occured to me....
I had this trouble before. Your sound card is an i845 chipset, but earlier drivers in Mandrake are terrible, as it picks up your headphones as primary output and shorts the speakers.

Guess what....not in 10.1.

Try to boot all the way (Stick in headphones to shut it up) then use the i810 audio drivers. This will make it work okay but they may fail to load in low power situations like battery/speedstep.

**bigtomrodney** · 04-28-2005

Here I go ressurecting an old thread again - I had similar problems to this old one when installing LE2005. Because the driver was giving me some trouble when trying to switch it I dug a bit deeper. If you find on a laptop (particularly on an 845 chipset) that the headphones sockets work but the main speakers don't then you need to edit /etc/asound.state.
first run

Code:

alsactl store

There should be a config message containing the string "External Amplifier" or "External Amplifier Power Down" :

Code:

control.38 &#123;
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
iface MIXER
name 'External Amplifier Power Down'
value false
&#125;

Change the value false part to value true.

after saving run

Code:

alsactl restore

and you should be good to go - but if you're using KDE note that there may be need to turn on KDE sound from it's control centre.

Just sharing the wealth....

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