[linux-audio-user] latency questions

I was running through the low-latency howto and I ran into a couple things that seem to be hindering process. First off, I'll mention that I'm using a Dell Inspiron 2650 laptop. I'm running debian unstable with 2.4.19. 1) DMA transer won't enable. I've enabled DMA transfers in the kernel as suggested by the howto. However, I'm unable to turn on dma access with hdparm. I'm told the operation is not permitted. 2) IRQ mess. dmesg lists that almost every device that is detected is on irq 10, including the onboard sound (i8x0) and video card (nVidia). As a result, in X, I get static and pops as the audio is delayed. Searching further, I noticed a message saying the APIC wasn't being used due to a buggy bios provided by Dell. This could explain why everything is pushed to IRQ 10. Has anyone had these problems, and more importantly, gotten around them? I'm not sure if the bios problem mentioned is accurate for the 2650. Looking through the kernel source, it clumps a bunch of models together. I'm tempted to hack through that and see if it does crash... Thanks Greg --- -