Sound III 336 SP soundcard/modem/doorstop

[psi42]

I have installed Vector Linux 3.2 onto an old P150 with 16MB ram. I have been able to get the hardware configured easily, except for the "Sound III 336 SP" soundcard/modem combo. I don't care about the modem--it's probably a winmodem anyway--but I would really like the sound to work.

Vector has a port of redhat's sndconfig which I have been able to use to setup sound painlessly on other systems. However, this time I have had no such luck.

First it starts off saying it has detected a PnP card, and then asks me for the IO, IRQ, DMA, etc. This is the fun part, as I have no idea what the correct values are. In fact, I don't know much more than what name it was given under win95:D. However, I usually have been able to just guess at these until I get it right:) (but on those other occasions I was configuring a non-PnP soundcard).

But the problem is, no matter what I do, I get a "no such device" error when sndconfig tries to load the module. Any ideas on what I should try next?

I will post the exact error messages as soon as I get back to this system.

I considered trying a Knoppix CD, but with the pathetic 16MB of RAM it takes 30 minutes to boot up and then says there is not enough memory.

I have searched here at JL and also at google linux, but all I have found is people having similar problems but with no solutions. I have also been unable to find much information about the soundcard/modem at all.

I am getting worried here. I hope I don't get a reply telling me I have "WinSound" and need to get a different soundcard:D.


Any ideas?

~psi42

[mdwatts]

Try

dmesg | less

cat /proc/interrupts

cat /proc/ioports

to see if the resources are listed for the soundcard.

<search keywords>

soundcard interrupts ioports

[psi42]

neither cat /proc/ioports nor cat /proc/interrupts said anything about a soundcard.

I found, on the corner of a piece of paper:D, that I had scribbled down the correct IO, IRQ, etc as reported by windoze. Even when using these parameters, I get the same error.

I read somewhere to disable PnP OS in the BIOS, so I tried that, but I am a bit confused as to what options to select (I've never done this before).

I see this option in the BIOS:
PnP OS:
--Yes
--Use BIOS Setup

Simple enough, right? Nope.
If I choose yes, I get:

Choose PnP OS:
--Disabled
--Other PnP OS
--Win95

I have tried "disabled" but it didn't help.

If I choose "USE BIOS Setup" It shows several IRQs and marks them all as "available." Do I leave them as available or try to assign the correct values manually?



The Vector Linux live cd is almost finished downloading...I will try that when it finishes.


~psi42

[mdwatts]

Leave PnP OS set to disabled.

Anything in

dmesg | less

about your soundcard?

[psi42]

I found the following in dmesg:


isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: Card 'AZT3000 PnP SOUND DEVICE'
isapnp: 1 Plug & Play card detected total


"AZT3000 PnP SOUND DEVICE" is exactly what sndconfig tells me it has detected...still the errors.


But now the weird bit...I put a music CD into the drive, and sound starts coming out of the speakers. But how is this possible, if I have "no such device"???


~psi42

[mdwatts]

So this is a ISA PnP soundcard? Jumpers?

Use those cat commands above to find out what irq and i/o address are available and either change the jumpers or use the dos based configuration utility (on the driver disk) to change the irq and i/o and disable ISA PnP on the card.

[psi42]

thanks I'll try it out.

Right now I have CD playback working, I guess that is because of the analog audio cable from the CD to the card...?
CD playback is all that really matters, as this system won't be playing sound other than from CD.

Thanks again for all your help!


~psi42

[psi42]

I came across this old thread.....

I figure I'd like to get this card fully working, just for the heck of it, for my own personal mental health. :)

The card itself is now seated in a different computer, a P200 with plenty of RAM, triple-booting DeLi 0.5, Slack 9.1, and (gasp!) a seriously messed up install of windoze 98 that I haven't bothered to delete yet.

The card is indeed ISAPnP, identified ambiguously as an "AZT3000 PnP Sound Device." It is listed as supported in this OSS supported cards list: http://www.opensound.com/osshw.html

The thing came with an ancient Packard Bell. I don't have any DOS config utility or documentation, so as far as jumpers are concerned it will be a twisted Russian Roulette, so to speak.

CD Playback does work (albeit mono :eek: ) via analog cable.


I have recently garnered a glimmer of home:

http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/alsa/alsa-kernel/isa/azt2320.c?rev=1.16

Probably a part of ALSA now. It looks promising.
...And I keep telling myself, one day I'll be able to understand the code :D


I'm going to get some sleep. :) Just wanted to post I had made some progress. I was actually just going to ask for help and I hit that page literally five minutes ago.

Am tired so I'm going to logoff now before I say something dumb. :)

~psi42

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by psi42
I
The thing came with an ancient Packard Bell. I don't have any DOS config utility or documentation, so as far as jumpers are concerned it will be a twisted Russian Roulette, so to speak.


So the soundcard has actual jumpers on the card? Then use those 'cat' commands above to find out what resources are currently being used and then change the jumpers to whatever the irq & i/o you have available. If you have a jumper to enable/disable ISAPnP, then set to disable.

[psi42]

Originally posted by mdwatts
So the soundcard has actual jumpers on the card? Then use those 'cat' commands above to find out what resources are currently being used and then change the jumpers to whatever the irq & i/o you have available. If you have a jumper to enable/disable ISAPnP, then set to disable.

I've taken a closer look at the card itself. There aren't any jumpers... I mistook the proprietary CD-ROM connector for a set of jumpers :rolleyes: ...

Even if there were any jumpers, I would have no way of knowing which jumper to set where, as I have zero documentation and can't find any........ That was the core of the problem, I knew which irq's and io ports I had free, but didn't know how to set the card to use them.



However, the above alsa driver does work, just fine. :)
I was suprised how easy it was.......................

My opinion of alsa has just changed... a lot.


Vector Linux 3.2 was based on slack 9.0, which didn't have alsa, and at the time I was such a n00b I didn't think to try it.

Thanks for all the help mdwatts :)

~psi42

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by psi42

That was the core of the problem, I knew which irq's and io ports I had free, but didn't know how to set the card to use them.

Thanks for all the help mdwatts :)


If you had a jumpered ISA card, then of course it is easy to manually configure the jumpers to whatever resources you have available, but with a ISAPnP jumperless card, you usually have to use the dos based config utility that is included on the ISA card driver diskette or downloadable from their website to be able to change the resources and disable ISAPnP. You certainly lucked out.

Glad to at least 'try' to help. :)