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, !