On 11/10/05, Nathan <thegnu(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
This is my first post here, so hello everybody. I'm running
PlanetCCRMA's FC3 distro (low-latency kernel
2.6.11-0.3.rdt.rhfc3.ccrma) on an Athlon 64 3000+ w. an NF4 chipset.
As far as sound goes, I'm using the integrated CK804 (w. snd-intel8x0
drivers) and an RME HDSP9652 (w. snd-hdsp).
The questions:
1. I've read a lot about getting the IRQ of the soundcard to as high a
priority as possible. How important is this? Is it possible with
setpci if I reserve an IRQ in the BIOS, or only by swapping cards?
2. Should I enable or disable APIC? I've heard muddy answers, but
what I know is that it always leaves my HDSP9652 at IRQ's from 16-20.
Here's the output of cat /proc/interrupts.
# cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0
0: 1556590 XT-PIC timer 0/56590
1: 3324 XT-PIC i8042 0/3324
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade 0/0
3: 3948 XT-PIC NVidia CK804 0/3948
4: 0 XT-PIC hdsp 0/0
5: 97413 XT-PIC ohci_hcd, nvidia 0/97413
7: 0 XT-PIC parport0 0/0
8: 1 XT-PIC rtc 0/1
9: 0 XT-PIC acpi 0/0
10: 0 XT-PIC libata, ehci_hcd 0/0
11: 37516 XT-PIC libata, eth0 0/37516
12: 146561 XT-PIC i8042 0/46561
14: 15416 XT-PIC ide0 0/15416
15: 12105 XT-PIC ide1 0/12105
NMI: 0
LOC: 1556573
ERR: 0
MIS: 0
3. Would you recommend I set my first soundcard to be the CK804 or
should I leave the RME as the first soundcard?
4. Should I just disable the CK804 and throw in an emu10k1? Becuase I
could do that, too.
Any help would be appreciated, and if I left something out, let me
know. Thanks!
-Nathan
Hi Nathan,
It sounds like we have almost identical hardware. I've got an
NForce4 motherboard (A8N-E) and an AMD64 3000+ also. I have both sound
cards working fine. Here's my Alsa config stuff:
mark@lightning ~ $ cat /etc/modules.d/alsa
# Alsa 0.9.X kernel modules' configuration file.
# $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/media-sound/alsa-utils/files/alsa-modules.con
f-rc,v 1.4 2004/11/16 01:31:22 eradicator Exp $
# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd
# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore
##
## IMPORTANT:
## You need to customise this section for your specific sound card(s)
## and then run `update-modules' command.
## Read alsa-driver's INSTALL file in /usr/share/doc for more info.
##
## ALSA portion
alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
options snd-intel8x0 index=0
alias snd-card-1 snd-hdsp
options snd-hdsp index=1
## OSS/Free portion
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
## alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1
##
# OSS/Free portion - card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
## OSS/Free portion - card #2
## alias sound-service-1-0 snd-mixer-oss
## alias sound-service-1-3 snd-pcm-oss
## alias sound-service-1-12 snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss
# Set this to the correct number of cards.
options snd cards_limit=2
mark@lightning ~ $
This sets up the NVidia chip as the default sound device and the HDSP
9652 as secondary. I find this better for web browsing, etc.
mark@lightning ~ $ cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [CK804 ]: NFORCE - NVidia CK804
NVidia CK804 with ALC850 at 0xda103000, irq 225
1 [DSP ]: H-DSP - Hammerfall DSP
RME Hammerfall HDSP 9652 at 0xda000000, irq 58
mark@lightning ~ $
My interrupts are considerably different:
mark@lightning ~ $ cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0
0: 7802062 IO-APIC-edge timer
1: 1099 IO-APIC-edge i8042
7: 2 IO-APIC-edge lpptest
8: 100746 IO-APIC-edge rtc
9: 0 IO-APIC-level acpi
12: 47669 IO-APIC-edge i8042
14: 48 IO-APIC-edge ide0
50: 2 IO-APIC-level ehci_hcd:usb1
58: 0 IO-APIC-level hdsp
66: 2 IO-APIC-level ohci1394
217: 875032 IO-APIC-level ohci_hcd:usb2, eth0
225: 4615 IO-APIC-level libata, NVidia CK804
233: 71628 IO-APIC-level libata
NMI: 218
LOC: 7801003
ERR: 1
MIS: 0
mark@lightning ~ $
Most likely this is due to my using a very new kernel:
mark@lightning ~ $ uname -a
Linux lightning 2.6.14-rt9 #1 PREEMPT Wed Nov 9 08:47:47 PST 2005
x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux
mark@lightning ~ $
I hope this helps.
cheers,
Mark