Dell Vostro 1720

[Vesperatus]

I think we have the same thing.

Can your add the version of alsa you are using.

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 07)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset PCI Express Graphics Port (rev 07)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation ICH9M/M-E SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 9600M GS (rev a1)
08:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 03)
0e:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev 01)
1a:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): O2 Micro, Inc. Device 10f7 (rev 01)
1a:00.1 SD Host controller: O2 Micro, Inc. Device 8120 (rev 01)
1a:00.2 Mass storage controller: O2 Micro, Inc. Device 8130 (rev 01)

phil@phil-laptop:~$ cat /proc/asound/version 
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.20.

phil@phil-laptop:~$ uname -r
2.6.28-15-generic

[dimoftheyard]

I am using the server kernel, because I have 4 GB of Ram:

$ uname -r
2.6.28-13-server

My Alsa version still is 1.0.18, which is exactly my problem. I installed alsa-base and alsa-utils from karmic, which has version 1.0.20. But even after a reboot it still says 1.0.18.

cat /proc/asound/version 
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.18rc3.

[Vesperatus]

I am using the server kernel, because I have 4 GB of Ram:

$ uname -r
2.6.28-13-server

My Alsa version still is 1.0.18, which is exactly my problem. I installed alsa-base and alsa-utils from karmic, which has version 1.0.20. But even after a reboot it still says 1.0.18.

cat /proc/asound/version 
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.18rc3.

I know you said you do not want to compile you alsa drivers but if you follow these instructions, everthing should go smoothly : http://monespaceperso.org/blog-en/20...tu-jaunty-904/


I you have some issues, just go in the 3 compilation folder and do make uninstall

Tadam. Alsa works.

[dimoftheyard]

Ok, that would work. I know that compiling is mostly not a problem, in this case it seems to work quite easily. I just thougt that having the package manager do the job is a much cleaner solution, and since the karmic packages had no critical dependencies... Anyway, thank you for yor quick help! I'll try it out, or post here if I find out how to do it with the packages.

[Vesperatus]

Ok, that would work. I know that compiling is mostly not a problem, in this case it seems to work quite easily. I just thougt that having the package manager do the job is a much cleaner solution, and since the karmic packages had no critical dependencies... Anyway, thank you for yor quick help! I'll try it out, or post here if I find out how to do it with the packages.

Let us know how it went.

By the way, each time a new kernel is going to be install, you will have to redo the make, make install.

I think it would be the same with the packages.

[dimoftheyard]

I did not yet try the compilation, and I wouldn't recommend following the howto exactly. One could at least have the sources in /usr/local/src, as I thought this was exactly what /usr/local/ was for. Also the file INSTALL in alsa-driver-1.0.20/ says

If you have already a system with ALSA init script, you should install just only modules via 'make install-modules' so that the existing init script won't be replaced.

Anyway, I got it working with packages from karmic, although this is not as easy as I had hoped. I installed libasound2 from karmic and after it still did not work I (finally) figured I needed the kernel from karmic. I am not entirely sure this is the only way, but it works with the generic-pae kernel from karmic (support for 32bit server kernels has been dropped, but generic-pae is exactly what I need). I tried various things (including installing from the alsa-source package with module-assistant) before but my alsa version never changed.

The new kernel from karmic has other problems, though. Currently it does not seem to detect my wireless card. But I still have to look into this problem, there should be a solution for it. Hopefully...

Anyway, thank you for your help. I must admit, that you probably were right and compiling from the sources is the easiest way to update alsa

[Vesperatus]

Anyway, thank you for your help. I must admit, that you probably were right and compiling from the sources is the easiest way to update alsa

Glad you got it working.

But did I understand right and you managed to get sound but lost wireless ?


Compiling would have been easier indeed

[deymious]

I've been having trouble with my 1520, which I think may be related to this. It seems every so often Grub crashes on load, so I can't get up to the selection screen. I read elsewhere this can be caused by bad keyboard input on boot. It seems that maybe this keyboard/touchpad problem may be more than an inconvenience. When this happens to me I can't do much other than reinstall to rewrite Grub.

[Vesperatus]

I've been having trouble with my 1520, which I think may be related to this. It seems every so often Grub crashes on load, so I can't get up to the selection screen. I read elsewhere this can be caused by bad keyboard input on boot. It seems that maybe this keyboard/touchpad problem may be more than an inconvenience. When this happens to me I can't do much other than reinstall to rewrite Grub.

Do you have vista installed on a second partition ? Because I do and it's the fourth time today I have to reinstall grub. Each time is after I boot vista...

[TheFlow]

Hi everybody. To get it out of the way, here are the specs for my vostro 1720:

Intel Core 2 Duo P8600(2,4GHz,1066MHz,3MB)
4 GB of RAM
512 MB NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GS BLACK
INTEL Wi-Fi Link 5300
NO Blue Ray

Everything worked out of the box, but I'm still having trouble with GRUB and the keyboard (sometimes)

GRUB seems to shoot itself in the leg sometimes, especially after booting into Vista (64- Bit Enterprise). It just hangs and restarts the laptop if no other bootable device is found. I correct this every now and then with the GRUB Super Disk, it is fixed in two minutes, so no biggie, but a permanent solution would be nice.

I applied the 'i8042.reset noapic -fix' but the keyboard still won't go to work sometimes. But here is what got my attention: I had a two hour train ride today, and GRUB killed itself again, but I had the GRUB Super Disk with me, so i tried to boot from it and fix GRUB. But my touchpad and my keyboard wouldn't work (even after the fourth reboot), so I postponed that until I got home. At home, I tried it again, again, no touchpad and no keyboard. Then I plugged in the power cable, and voila, keyboard and touchpad were waiting for input.

My worst case scenario would be something like this: meeting with a potential costumer (I'm in WLAN penetration business) and I can't get any OS running.

So, any help would be appreciated.