XMMS sound problem on Inspiron 3200

Forum: Laptops
Topic: XMMS sound problem on Inspiron 3200
started by: ron

Posted by ron on Sep. 08 2006,19:31

Hi

I have an unusual problem with this old laptop. I installed DSL and followed the Dell Inspiron 3200 DSL-wiki instructions to install sound, as super-user. Everything was fine. However, attempts to play any sound file (WAV or MP3) have been unsuccessful. This is odd, because in this instance I know for sure that the installation commands for sound in the DSL-Wiki for this particular machine are correct.

The specific problem is: although XMMS seems to load up the file, and any ID3 tags, displaying the name of the song in nice scrolling text, it doesn't progress the play indicator at all. It just stays at zero, and the spectral analyzer readout remains flat. Clicking on play/pause intermittently causes a very brief sudden flash of activity on the analyzer screen, and advances the playback by half a second.

As a result there is no evidence that the sound card works on this computer. There are beeps from internal speaker, but not a whisper from the sound card.
I am aware of the mixer feature, and all levels have been set to max. Everything is unmuted. Even the vol indicator in the bottom-right corner of screen is maxed-out.

Any ideas what might be wrong? I know that DSL has the potential to use the sound card on this machine.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Posted by vermin on Sep. 10 2006,16:38

I alos had some problems with my sound card on my Dell 300 Ins.
I got the help from:
< http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki....through >
That is not on the server anymore

But here is in a nut shell.
You have to change the machine's bios to have the sound card enabled, not auto or by software or by operating system.
Create a file with Beaver called sound.srs (or any thing you want)
with the following:
modprobe sound
modprobe ad1848
insmod uart401
insmod cs4232 io=0x530 irq=5 dma=1 dma2=0 mpuio=0x330 mpuirq=5
Save this file (automaticly it will save it in /home)

Then from the Aterminal as super user type in the following:
bash sound.srs ( or the file name you created with the extention)
It should work.

Posted by ron on Sep. 10 2006,19:23

Thanks vermin but that article is still up on the server, at:

< http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Inspiron_3200_Walkthrough >

I carried out the instructions (and had no error messages) but still the XMMS application won't play - it's as if the progress bar in XMMS is stuck or something.

Posted by gigi1234 on Sep. 13 2006,16:06

I don't know if this is relevant or will help you. But my soundcard was not being detected by DSL even though the kernel supports it.

I used apt to install a program called "sndconfig"

Code Sample

apt-get install sndconfig

Then in the console run

Code Sample

sndconfig

And you will be guided through a configuration process for your card (just be sure you know what sound card you have).

After I did this my soundcard was detected and I could play audio using XMMS.

Posted by ron on Sep. 16 2006,22:30

Thanks gigi but this wasn't necessary in my case. It was necessary to simply to select "enable" soundcard in the BIOS on startup, to get the card working. I didn't even know it was disabled: Windoze used to open soundcard through software. Anyway it's all fixed now.