[linux-audio-user] new computer woes

[Mark Knecht]

Anthony,
   Hi. I think there haven't been that many dual-processor users yet. Paul
and Jesse are, and probably a few more. We need more trailblazers, I guess!
;-)

   First, the IRQ stuff on the Audio Quality HOWTO really does not apply at
all the dual processor. I'm willing to try and help in that area, but it
will be at an arms length since I don't have a dual processor machine. I did
collect a bit of info on SMP IRQs, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me
yet. Maybe we can make some sense of it together. Post back some info about
the machine and IRQs.

   There will of course be all sorts of questions about what disk drives,
what speeds, etc. as well as what drive format. We'll just have to dig in.

   There was a post a few months ago, on the Jack or Ardour lists I think,
about someone having some distortion and xruns, and then solving the problem
by compiling the graphics adapter driver himself. I think that was an nVidia
item, but I don't remember. Check back in September I think.

   Sorry I don't have any great answers. Just ideas.

Cheers,
Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: linux-audio-user-admin at music.columbia.edu
[mailto:linux-audio-user-admin at music.columbia.edu]On Behalf Of Anthony
Sent: Friday, December 20, 2002 2:15 AM
To: linux-audio-user at music.columbia.edu
Subject: [linux-audio-user] new computer woes



Thought I'd post to see if anyone has any advice. I've just built a
new SMP machine: Asus A7M266-D, 1.0 Ghz Athlons * 2. I got some nice
fans from endpcnoise.com (Molex) that are virtually silent and a Power
Supply which is louder than what I'd hope but very reasonable for
400W's I suppose (dunno).

I installed gentoo, latest alsa, etc... Unfortunately playback is
distorted during video load. It is *not* a CPU load issue - I can
playback just fine while compiling the kernel with make -j3. If I
scroll pages up and down in galeon the sounds slows down :o. Jack
doesn't report Xruns but sometimes delays when I do this. This occurs
both with the onboard C-media chip and my Delta 44.

I struggled for a long time to get the IRQ's not to share. I tried all
the suggestions in the Audio Quality HOWTO. The video card is a PCI
GForce 2. It was in my old machine and didn't cause any problems
(while my old onboard AGP did create some noise). The only thing I can
find is the PCI Latency settings are all set to 32. This seems odd I
suppose, so I tried higher settings for the video to give it more
bandwith and other variations with no success.

I might go out and buy an inexpensive AGP card tomorrow, but I'd hate
to find out the problem is deeper than that. Kernel is 2.4.20 vanilla
tried with and without lowlat. Maybe I should back down to 2.4.19? Any
suggestions? TIA

--ant