HOWTO: Nvidia nForce SoundStorm APU: Digital output, Surround and Hardware mixing

[Spindoctor]

I want to use the Nvidia-Driver as for some strange reason my speakers make a silent but hearable buzzing noise (but only in 5.1 mode) all the time, when my computer is turned on. This was driving me insane. When I had Windows installed before, this sound stopped after booting to Windows.

But, out of curiosity and in case it will help someone else: When you say you solved it by following the OpenSound guide, did you follow the whole guide and installed OSSv4 (which means you don't use the nvsound driver or the soundstorm chipset), or did you just follow part of the guide without installing OSSv4 (which means you still use soundstorm and nvsound)?

Oh, I also installed OSSv4. I didn't understand that I was replacing nvsound with that(it was really late yesterday).

But, as far as I remember, I think it also worked just before I installed OSSv4.

Hmm, in my opinion the buzzing noise got even more silent and less disturbing using OSSv4, but turning up the volume (on my speakers) I realize that it is still there.

I'd like to give nvsound a try... how can I replace the "native" OSSv4-driver with nvsound?


Thank you once more!

Spin

[jocko]

I want to use the Nvidia-Driver as for some strange reason my speakers make a silent but hearable buzzing noise (but only in 5.1 mode) all the time, when my computer is turned on. This was driving me insane. When I had Windows installed before, this sound stopped after booting to Windows.



Oh, I also installed OSSv4. I didn't understand that I was replacing nvsound with that(it was really late yesterday).

But, as far as I remember, I think it also worked just before I installed OSSv4.

Hmm, in my opinion the buzzing noise got even more silent and less disturbing using OSSv4, but turning up the volume (on my speakers) I realize that it is still there.

I'd like to give nvsound a try... how can I replace the "native" OSSv4-driver with nvsound?


Thank you once more!

Spin

You can't replace the OSSv4 driver with nvsound. Nvsound was written for OSSv3 (which is still in the linux kernel) and nvidia quit developing it long before OSSv4 was released and returned to open source (and anyway, if they would have continued developing it they would probably have switched it to alsa instead, as that's what was being used at the time).
How do you connect your sound? Digital output through s/pdif with rca cable? Optical s/pdif? Analog output? The only thing I can think of which can cause the noise you describe is electrical interference from some other component in the computer, but I think that should only affect analog output...

[Spindoctor]

You can't replace the OSSv4 driver with nvsound. Nvsound was written for OSSv3 (which is still in the linux kernel) and nvidia quit developing it long before OSSv4 was released and returned to open source (and anyway, if they would have continued developing it they would probably have switched it to alsa instead, as that's what was being used at the time).

Okay, in this case I would have to try to uninstall the OSS4-packages, I've installed following the guide, right?

How do you connect your sound? Digital output through s/pdif with rca cable? Optical s/pdif? Analog output? The only thing I can think of which can cause the noise you describe is electrical interference from some other component in the computer, but I think that should only affect analog output...

I connect my speakers with Analog output. My amplifier only has analog input (new amplifier would be more expansive than a new 5.1 soundcard )
I'm not sure if the noise is really comming from electrical interferences as it is

1. not there in Windows
2. not there if I play an (empty) sound file
3. not there when i install nvsound (although Gnome had problems with nvsound as discribed)
4. (at least with OSSv4 - I can't tell for ALSA at the moment) not there when the computer is "doing something" - for example the noise stops while im scrolling websites

I'm not an expert, but I have two approaches for my problem. One was to install the nvidia driver (but now I'm not sure if this is advantegous). The second would be to have a process running that keeps the sound chip "initialised" all the time (but I don't know how to do that).

Thank you once more.

[ppurka]

I had to revert to alsa a few days back. FYI, I am using gentoo.

I updated the whole system recently and the nvsound drivers had been acting up. Really badly. Basically, the module needed to be modprobe'd at some specific time (usually as early as possible) on boot, otherwise the kernel would hang (SysRq wouldn't work). I have tried many different kernels from 2.6.30 - 2.6.32, and it used to modprobe successfully only with 2.6.32-zen kernel. On top of that it somehow affected DMA on hard disk. I was getting anywhere between 8MBps to 40MBps speed on running "hdparm -t /dev/sda" depending on whether some sound was being played or not (lower when sound was being played).

It appears that the nvsound drivers have finally become incompatible with the latest linux system. I don't know anything about the inner workings of the kernel or userspace apps to even attempt to fix it.

[raphen]

To apply the patches, just follow the relevant steps (3 and 4) of the main howto, but apply the correct patches and install like this [instead of step 4 -II a) or b)]:

./2.6.26-patch
sudo ./nforce-installer

where are these steps?

[jocko]

where are these steps?

Just follow the howto (first post in this thread). The post you quoted was only relevant for a couple of days 1.5 years ago, until I updated the actual howto...

[jocko]

Sadly, my old desktop decided to become old and demented (severe instability, random crashes, freezes, segfaults and data losses, probably caused by a couple of bulging and visibly leaking capacitors on the motherboard), so I've decided to let it retire after long and faithful service.
This means there is no longer any real reason for me to continue maintaining this thread, except for the occasional fun of solving a problem that is in no way related to my day job (basic research in evolution and bacterial genetics).

If anyone else wants to take up the torch and continue providing patches for the nvsound driver for future kernel releases, you are very welcome to use, modify and distribute this thread and my patches in any way you like.

[irvotheturbo]

Thanks a lot for your work jocko, has worked perfectly in the past and still does!
Most of us will probably get an upgrade too - I know I will this year!

[andree_b]

Yeah thanks Jocko for this thread.

Some update wrt ubuntu 10.04:
Stills works with the 2.6.30 patch, but i have to use "noirqdebug" kernel parameter since there seem to be some quirks with irq-handling which make the kernel disable the irq for the apu after some time --> choppy sound. With "noirqdebug" the irq doesnt get disabled and might cause some other problems - but for me it foxes the sound...

May be someone finds this useful:
To use soundstorms hw-ac3 encoding for 6 channel aac material with mplayer use the following parameters:
mplayer -channels 6 -af resample=40000,channels=6:6:0:0:1:1:2:4:3:5:4:2:5: 3 filename.mkv

The "channels=6:6:0:0:1:1:2:4:3:5:4:2:5:3" part will order the channels to their correct positions
"resample=40000" will resample the sound to 40k - you might not need it but on my system the sound gets choppy if i use higher sample rates like the default 48k... dont know really why.

(I am using just digital connection to my amplifier - but the channel reordering is probably needed for analog output too)

[zoso75]

Thank you jocko for your good job ...
I'm a new linux user but unfortunately I' m running Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS (Linux Version 2.6.32-25-generic) so your good guide need a little update ... The steps are clear, it's all corrects (including the exceptions like "if you get this error do this etc...", great!!!) but probably some stuffs are missing ...
I have the 5. 1 Dolby digital led turned on on my apmplifier, I can hear the sound test by "gstreamer-properties" but no card is detected in the Hardware Audio Settings ... So any ideas ???
I have A7N8X-E Deluxe ...
I would appreciate any help you can give me