I just put Fedora Core 6 on a KDS laptop, and got no sound.  All the
right modules seem to be loaded, but when I run the sound configurator
I don't hear the sound, and if I lie and say I did then it still
does not create a /dev/dsp.

I remembered from some time back that a fix for this was to add
'acpi=off' to the kernel boot line, so I did that and sound works
again.

Can anyone explain why this is?  And with acpi=off the machine won't
power itself down, it just halts like the old machines where the
power switch was a real on-off switch.
-- 

jhhaynes at earthlink dot net

On Sat, 21 Jul 2007 02:06:43 GMT, Jim Haynes <haynes@alumni.uark.edu> wrote:
> I just put Fedora Core 6 on a KDS laptop, and got no sound.  All the
> right modules seem to be loaded, but when I run the sound configurator
> I don't hear the sound, and if I lie and say I did then it still
> does not create a /dev/dsp.
>
> I remembered from some time back that a fix for this was to add
> 'acpi=off' to the kernel boot line, so I did that and sound works
> again.
>
> Can anyone explain why this is?  And with acpi=off the machine won't
> power itself down, it just halts like the old machines where the
> power switch was a real on-off switch.

Do you have sound with microphone?

i

> I remembered from some time back that a fix for this was to add
> 'acpi=off' to the kernel boot line, so I did that and sound works again.

On some of the older kernels and alsa versions, I had to do acpi=nopci to 
get sound working.  That might be a better option than acpi=off.  

Since acpi controls things like cpu cooling.  It's not something you want 
off.  At least on modern boards where acpi is the only option and 
software, not hardware driven.  Other pre-issue resolutions tricks 
included setting PnP off in your bios.  You might try upgrading your bios 
and see if that helps as well.  Normally this is only an issue on newer 
boards with soundcards that aren't fully supported yet.  And/or 
development versions of the linux kernel.

In a perfect world you shouldn't need acpi=off.  Unless your computer 
only supports apm, which would imply that it's old or at least odd, 
relative to what seems to be mainstream these days.

HTH

In article <pan.2007.07.21.16.26.46@yaNOhoo.comNULL>,
Shadow_7  <wwwShadow7@yaNOhoo.comNULL> wrote:
>
>
>> I remembered from some time back that a fix for this was to add
>> 'acpi=off' to the kernel boot line, so I did that and sound works again.
>
>On some of the older kernels and alsa versions, I had to do acpi=nopci to 
>get sound working.  That might be a better option than acpi=off.  

Tried that, but sound didn't work, no /dev/dsp got created.  I don't
understand what acpi has to do with sound.
>
>Since acpi controls things like cpu cooling.  It's not something you want 
>off.  At least on modern boards where acpi is the only option and 
>software, not hardware driven. 
Well the fan seems to go on and off by itself anyway, so I guess it is
hardare controlled.

> Other pre-issue resolutions tricks 
>included setting PnP off in your bios.  You might try upgrading your bios 
>and see if that helps as well.  Normally this is only an issue on newer 
>boards with soundcards that aren't fully supported yet.

Turning PnP on and off seems to be well hidden.  I can get into the
BIOS, but that is not a topic that comes up.  Getting a new BIOS is
unlikely since KDS doesn't make laptops anymore, and seems to have
disowned the ones they did make.  And the sound card did come with the
comuter and does work OK under Windows.

>In a perfect world you shouldn't need acpi=off.  Unless your computer 
>only supports apm, which would imply that it's old or at least odd, 
>relative to what seems to be mainstream these days. 

It is old, was bought when Windows ME was current and was not eligible
for upgrade to WinXP.

Thanks.

-- 

jhhaynes at earthlink dot net

In article <ArCdnYspDenAHjzbnZ2dnUVZ_r7inZ2d@giganews.com>,
Ignoramus7848  <ignoramus7848@NOSPAM.7848.invalid> wrote:
>Do you have sound with microphone?
>
Guess not, since there is no /dev/dsp created.  Works OK in
Windows ME tho.

-- 

jhhaynes at earthlink dot net

>>> I remembered from some time back that a fix for this was to add
>>> 'acpi=off' to the kernel boot line, so I did that and sound works
>>> again.
>>
>>On some of the older kernels and alsa versions, I had to do acpi=nopci
>>to get sound working.  That might be a better option than acpi=off.

There's other options like acpi=noapic and various alsa options like 
try_unsupported=1.  You might play with those to see if there's a happy 
medium.  Alsa might be outputting something in dmesg to indicate what 
it's having issues with.  And various other things to look at in /proc/ 
and /var/log/.

> Tried that, but sound didn't work, no /dev/dsp got created.  I don't
> understand what acpi has to do with sound.
>>
>>Since acpi controls things like cpu cooling.  It's not something you
>>want off.  At least on modern boards where acpi is the only option and
>>software, not hardware driven.
> Well the fan seems to go on and off by itself anyway, so I guess it is
> hardare controlled.

You're one of the lucky ones.  My acpi didn't work until 2.4.22+, where 
2.4.x was a fairly new thing when I got my laptop.  Some two years down 
the road, I could actually play games on it without it overheating and 
shutting off.  Once it did work, it ran cooler than under windows.

I had an issue a while ago where my 8139too driver seemed to affect some 
other driver like usb.  I guess IRQ sharing or something else was having 
issues.  Even with current kernels, if I modprobe my video drivers, my 
mouse drivers seem to reset and output stuff to the console.  Things seem 
to be a little more inter-related than they probably should be.

>> Other pre-issue resolutions tricks
>>included setting PnP off in your bios.  You might try upgrading your
>>bios and see if that helps as well.  Normally this is only an issue on
>>newer boards with soundcards that aren't fully supported yet.
> 
> Getting a new BIOS is unlikely since KDS doesn't make
> laptops anymore, and seems to have disowned the ones
> they did make.

And there's your answer.  Actually I've owned a few Intel boards that 
they've disowned.  And then there's IBM's Y2K fix of declaring an entire 
OS officially deprecated.  And don't get me started on Java rewriting the 
API with every release.