White noise from Sound Blaster 5.1 VX, amd64

[panrosen]

Hi,

I have been trying to get my Sound Blaster 5.1 VX to work, but I only got white noise from it when I play something out. I finally decided to install windows and try it there, just to verify that there was no hardware problem with the sound card. It worked fine in windows, and when I rebooted to linux, it worked there too. It turns out that if I first boot windows and then reboot, it will work fine under linux, but if I boot linux immediately after power up, I only get noise.

I guess the windows drivers perform some initialization of the card that is needed.

Does anyone know how to get around this problem? I have been surfing quite a lot, but not seen anything about this particular problem.

Some info about my system:

osen@hathor:~$ aplay -L
front:CARD=CA0106,DEV=0
CA0106, CA0106
Front speakers
rear:CARD=CA0106,DEV=0
CA0106, CA0106
Rear speakers
center_lfe:CARD=CA0106,DEV=0
CA0106, CA0106
Center and Subwoofer speakers
side:CARD=CA0106,DEV=0
CA0106, CA0106
Side speakers
surround40:CARD=CA0106,DEV=0
CA0106, CA0106
4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=CA0106,DEV=0
CA0106, CA0106
4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=CA0106,DEV=0
CA0106, CA0106
5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=CA0106,DEV=0
CA0106, CA0106
5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=CA0106,DEV=0
CA0106, CA0106
7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=CA0106,DEV=0
CA0106, CA0106
IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
null
Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)


rosen@hathor:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Memory controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 Memory Controller (rev a3)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 ISA Bridge (rev f3)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation CK804 SMBus (rev a2)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 USB Controller (rev a2)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK804 IDE (rev f2)
00:07.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK804 Serial ATA Controller (rev f3)
00:08.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK804 Serial ATA Controller (rev f3)
00:09.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCI Bridge (rev f2)
00:0a.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 Ethernet Controller (rev f3)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev f3)
00:0c.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev f3)
00:0d.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev f3)
00:0e.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev a3)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6306 Fire II IEEE 1394 OHCI Link Layer Controller (rev c0)
01:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy LS
05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G70 [GeForce 7600 GT] (rev a1)


rosen@hathor:~$ uname -a
Linux hathor 2.6.27-11-generic #1 SMP Thu Jan 29 19:28:32 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I'm running ubuntu intrepid.

Best regards,
Anders

[rlsn]

Hi,

I'm using the exact same Sound card on Intel 32 bit, I had the exact same problem on inteprid. So I did a fresh install of Jaunty and still have the same problem. It works fine if I boot into windows first and then reboot into ubuntu.

Has anyone filed a bug report for this?

Some hardware devices need firmware initialization before they work, this seems like one of those.

[SpencerHolst]

The same here. Intel 32 bit and Sound Blaster 5.1 Vx. A fresh start of ubuntu, I get white noise; booting windows first then restarting with ubuntu, it works (only front speakers though, not 5.1)

One more thing, maybe this will also apply to all. When I return to Windows, after a working Sound Blaster within ubuntu (I mean windows-restart-ubuntu-restart-windows), I get some annoying clicking, clipping, pzzt like short (like 1/5 secs or so) noises from random speakers when playing sound files and also in games.

there is still no answer, so I wanted to stir the topic and add the above syptom.

Can

[karbolet]

same here.
onboard card works fine in both systems (XP + ubuntu 9.04), but pci card (sb 5.1 vx) works only after a windows boot.

[Steve R.]

Interesting. I was having the same problem. See: Rockfish Sound Card - Static (White Noise). I ran out of time this weekend, so I returned the sound card. When I have some time available again, I can give it a try. The computer is dual boot already so it should be (famous last words) "simple"!!!

[Steve R.]

Today I received the Creative Blaster Audigy SE card. I first booted into WindowsXP and got it working. I then rebooted into Ubuntu and the card worked!

Since I got it configured to work in WindowsXP first, I can't answer the question of whether it would work should you install it and boot directly into Ubuntu.

Anyway Success, !

[nevingeorge]

I have the exact same problem.Has this ever been solved?I boot into windows then ubuntu no problem.If i boot up straight to ubuntu harsh noise.now how do i fix this?

[jeff3]

I have the same problem running CentOS 5.4 (kernel 2.6.18-164 and alsa-utils 1.0.17-1) on an Acer M460. White noise on the green output when running the sound test in System/Administration/Soundcard Detection. One post (http://bugs.gentoo.org/36415) indicates that the problem has been known since 2005. There's a code fragment for ca0106_main.c at http://mailman.alsa-project.org/pipe...er/011333.html which purportedly makes the card work, however I haven't time to start building drivers, so I can't confirm that.

[na0aki shimokawa]

hi
i had same problem on amd64 but i solved this problem.
if you have white noise, you already can solve this problem. because, it was alsa problem in my case.

go to Applications tab in sound window
[System] -> [Preferences] -> [Sound]

then you will see ALSA plug-in slide bar. that volume turn down to most small sound that you can hear sound.
but now you cant get enough sound, so you have to turn up the Output volume.

finally, i could get sound on Sound Blaster 5.1 VX.

if you could not get white noise, you should try bellow driver.

http://www.4front-tech.com/download.cgi

and i tried some case to solve this problem.
i could get sound temporary, i install the driver and restart (Note: its not cold start) and remove it. and restart. so you can get sound. but if you shutdown once, you lost the sound.

my english is not good, sorry.

[rickq]

Hi all,

I've got the same problem. White noise after sound card installation. After rebooting to Windows and back to Ubuntu sound works.

I've tried to download ALSA sources and add the code fragment described at http://mailman.alsa-project.org/pipe...er/011333.html into ca0106_main.c. Compilation and installation were successful. I can see the modified driver in multimedia system setting window (I am using Kubuntu).

Unfortunately, it did not solve the problem completely but I experienced a small progress.
1) Booting to Windows does not affect sound in Ubuntu
2) After computer power on and booting Ubuntu, sound works in one case: MPlayer is playing an mp3 (still no sound) and when I select the sound driver in multimedia system setting window and click Test button, I can hear the mp3 played by MPlayer, as long as the sound test is running.

Can anybody explain this behavior ? I believe there is an easy way how to modify the sound driver to work properly.

Kind regards,

Rick