Stumped by ALSA - it won't use the card I want it to use!

charlieg

I swear this has driven me to my wits end.

I have an onboard via soundcard, which I don't want to use. I have a lovely old SoundBlaster AWE32 that I like using for probably nothing more than nostalgic reasons.

However, my Gentoo box seems to disagree with me. Despite having no mention of via in any config file that seems relevant, and explicitly only ever specifying it to use the snd-sbawe module, it keeps using my [beep]ing via chipset.

I've followed the Gentoo ALSA guide over and over to a tee. I'm using the 2.6 kernel. And I'm just plain stumped.
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snipingkills · Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2003 2:00 pm Post subject:

Did you disable it in the BIOS or use the onboard jumpers? If not that might cause you your problems.
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charlieg · Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2003 3:20 pm Post subject:

I don't really want to have to go to such lengths in order to use my other sound card. I mean, the whole configuration issue should get around that; surely alsa should be using the card that is specified and not the one it bumps into first.
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snipingkills · Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2003 7:23 pm Post subject:

Well my line of thought was that when the BIOS first boots it allocates the IRQ and all that other important stuff to the onboard soundcard first. That was my line of thought. The other thing I might ask about is have you tried using the ALSA driver in the 2.6 series that way you can compile it into the kernel and use ALSA that way? That is what it took here for the sound on my lappy to function. I would insert the module and it just would not function properly.
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charlieg · Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2003 7:10 pm Post subject:

Y'know what, I had given up after trying endlessly to fix this. Between then and today, I've rebooted my machine perhaps 3 or 4 times (the gf keeps on making it hang!) only today, when it booted up, sound didn't work.

All of a sudden, the machine has made up it's mind to use the right sound card! It had just dropped my VIA and gone with the SB! Joy!

Although I will remain forever perplexed at the timing of this event.

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Woody · Guru Joined: 30 Nov 2002 Posts: 592 Location: Milwaukee

The modules file for alsa allows you to index the cards in any order. You can
also define a default device in asoundrc. Whats 'gf' and why is it hanging
your machine? You shouldnt need to reboot ever

charlieg · Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2004 3:36 am Post subject: