DSL problems on old compaq armada


Forum: Laptops
Topic: DSL problems on old compaq armada
started by: Dragonetti

Posted by Dragonetti on Feb. 04 2007,14:43
Hi. I'm starting to move over to Linux from windows so I can escape from the dreaded Vista Demon. I have two boxes- one PC I use XP on, soon to be Ubuntu, and an ancient Compaq Armada 1598dt which used to run win98se.

Dsl works beautifully on the laptop except for some largeish points. I cannot get sound to work at all, nor the wireless card I have. Two smaller queries: I use a custom keyboard layout, Its part swiss french, part british; is it possible to make a keyboard file Linux would understand for this? Secondly, how does one install OpenOffice onto DSL, as I find Beaver/Ted insufficient for what I use the Laptop for.

There are the problems, here are the details: The soundcard is a soundblaster 16b compatible card, and it used to run some driver with ESS in the name on windows. The wireless card is the Linksys WPC11 v4 wlan card on a realtech chipset.

I have tried several of the other solutions to such problems I found on this forum, but to no avail. I mostly got "Incorrect driver!" errors. The wlan card does put its lights on though, and I can see the dmix bar at the bottom of the screen and play with the volume control. When I turn up the sound with the built in volume control buttons, i can hear feedback from the internal mike. Both sound and the wlan card worked faultlessly on win98se, and it would be a shame to move back just to use them!

Laptop specs: 64mb ram, pentium MMX 266mhz processor, 4gb HDD from which I'm running DSL - I did the harddrive install.

I hope you can help me! I'm very new to Linux, so could you explain any steps you give me because I don't know what most commands do yet!

Thanks,
Dragonetti

Posted by roberts on Feb. 04 2007,15:55
Look for possible sound solution:
< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....blaster >

Posted by roberts on Feb. 04 2007,16:02
Using the Search button on this forums show a possible wifi solution here:
< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....07;st=0 >

Posted by Dragonetti on Feb. 04 2007,17:04
Quote (roberts @ Feb. 04 2007,10:55)
Look for possible sound solution:
< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....blaster >

Tried most of that. Once I've done the "modprobe sb esstype=0" command, XMMS gives no error message, it appears to be playing, and If I turn the volume up I can hear the microphone if I tap it. However I still get no music! Grrr!

EDIT: When this happened, lsmod print out is this:
sound 55244  1 [sb_lib uart401 opl3]
soundcore 3428 4 (autoclean) [sb_lib sound]

EDIT: Am troubleshooting wlan card, but I think I need to change some boot commands. I use Lilo, not grub. How do I allow dma? I can't edit lilo.conf as it is write protected...

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Feb. 04 2007,18:07
Quote
I use Lilo, not grub. How do I allow dma? I can't edit lilo.conf as it is write protected...
add " dma" to APPEND or use the command: "hdparm -d1 <device>".  Copy a regular lilo.conf over to somewhere you can write it - make sure you are root when you edit it.

Posted by Dragonetti on Feb. 04 2007,18:14
Thanks, trying that now.

One more problem to add to my growing list...
Sometimes when booting, no pattern to this AFAIK, it hangs just after the line processor 0 is pentium mmx 267mhz. All my system lights go off, no noises etc. Have to power off and then restart, which plays havok with the HDD. Any clues?

Posted by rja on Feb. 06 2007,02:16
I have dsl running on a Compaq Armada SB, which is almost
the same as yours.  Here is what I have in /etc/modprobe.conf:

alias snd-card-0 sb
options snd-card-0 index=0
options sb isapnp=0 io=0x220 mpu_io=0x330 dma=1 dma16=5 irq=5 multiple=0

Try adding those three lines to your /etc/modprobe.conf and reboot.

I haven't tried using alsa lately, but if you want to try that, then these commented out lines used to work:
#alias snd-card-0 snd_es18xx
#options snd-card-0 index=0
#options snd_es18xx enable=1 isapnp=0 port=0x220 mpu_port=0x330 dma1=1 dma2=5 irq=5 fm_port=0x388
#install snd_es18xx /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd_es18xx && /usr/sbin/alsactl restore >/dev/null 2>&1 || ;
#remove snd_es18xx { /usr/sbin/alsactl store >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; }; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd_es18xx

Posted by Dragonetti on Feb. 08 2007,12:58
Hey. I stuck that in /etc/modprobe.conf and tweaked this and that. When i quoted out the first 3 lines, but used the other lines instead I got no sound, but I got this in my dmesg:

sb: No ISAPnP cards found, trying standard ones...
SB 3.01 dtected OK (220)
ESS chip ESS1878 detected
sb: Interrupt test on IRQ7 failed - Probable IRQ conflict
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (driver version 1.16)
Sound: DMA (output) timed out - IRQ/DRQ config error?
Sound: DMA (output) timed out - IRQ/DRQ config error?
Sound: DMA (output) timed out - IRQ/DRQ config error?
Sound: DMA (output) timed out - IRQ/DRQ config error?

I feel that I am close to getting this sorted...

I cannot access the BIOS on my lappy -  don't know why not. I mash all sorts of F keys throughout the boot, but Lilo always kicks in. How do I have a look at the IRQ settings without getting to the BIOS? Or does anyone know the correct button?

I also still cannot get the WLAN card working.

Posted by roberts on Feb. 08 2007,14:24
If you want to check for irq conflicts try this:

dmesg | grep -i irq

Posted by Dragonetti on Feb. 08 2007,15:03
Thanks. It doesn't mention any conflicts directly, except
"sb: Interrupt test on IRQ7 failed - Probable IRQ conflict" again.

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Feb. 08 2007,20:02
Quote
I cannot access the BIOS on my lappy -  don't know why not. I mash all sorts of F keys throughout the boot, but Lilo always kicks in.
Some systems use DEL (delete) or INS (Insert) to load it on boot... if that doesn't help, checking out your system manual might shed some light on it (some older laptops required a boot dos floppy to access some things).

Quote
options sb isapnp=0 io=0x220 mpu_io=0x330 dma=1 dma16=5 irq=5 multiple=0
Maybe changing around these numbers might help... maybe try testing it without dma enabled? changing the irq?  Or maybe you'll need to boot up with something like "dsl pci=assign-buses"?

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