FC 5 on a Medion SIM2050 - no sound

Hello,

I just bought a Medion SIM2050 and installed FC5 on it without
a hitch (the boot kernel of FC4 just panic'd when attempting
to boot from the DVD).

Everything is working fine except the sound. The recommended
driver autodetected by the installer is snd-intel8x0.

I have updated the kernel to 2.6.16-1.2122_FC5. No more luck.
I have downloaded the ALSA sources from source forge and
recompiled them. No better.

The internal loudspeakers of the laptop do not produce any
sound, even when boosting the levels (using alsamixer) at
their maximum. The only 'sound' I could hear was when
plugin a jack on external speakers and rising their volume
to the maximum : the sound is distorded and still very low.

I'd like to mention that I have tried every combination of
switches and levels in alsamixer, as indicated in the README.

# lspci -v | grep -i audio
00:1e.2 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation
82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 04)

Kernel traces :
May 31 13:26:09 XXX kernel: intel8x0_measure_ac97_clock: measured 55492
usecs
May 31 13:26:09 XXX kernel: intel8x0: clocking to 48000

Interruptions :
21: 364979 IO-APIC-level ipw2200, Intel ICH6

Kernel version : 2.6.16-1.2122_FC5

# lsmod | grep snd_
snd_intel8x0 30876 1
snd_ac97_codec 83488 1 snd_intel8x0
snd_ac97_bus 2688 1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_seq_dummy 4100 0
snd_seq_oss 30208 0
......

Any idea ?

Thanks in advance,
--
Thierry

On Fri, 02 Jun 2006 22:50:14 +0200, Thierry Danis staggered into the
Black Sun and said:
> I just bought a Medion SIM2050 and installed FC5 on it

Hm. How new is this machine? Does it have another model#, one starting
with "MD"? There's no listing for a SIM2050 on
http://tuxmobil.org/medion.html , which is usually a sign that you'll
have some sort of hassle with it. Pioneers get arrows in their backs,
after all.

> Everything is working fine except the sound. The recommended driver
> autodetected by the installer is snd-intel8x0. I have updated the
> kernel to 2.6.16-1.2122_FC5. No luck.

There have been many, many iterations of the intel8x0 sound chip. Each
iteration is slightly different. If this thing is really new, the chip
may be just different enough from previous iterations that the module
won't work until the kernel guys get their hands on a machine with this
exact chip and tweak the module a bit.

> The internal loudspeakers of the laptop do not produce any sound, even
> when boosting the levels (using alsamixer) at their maximum. The only
> 'sound' I could hear was when plugin a jack on external speakers and
> rising their volume to the maximum : the sound is distorded and still
> very low.

Hm. Sounds like something similar to what I described above; some
register rearrangement or different I/O scheme is making everything not
work like it used to.

> I have tried every combination of switches and levels in alsamixer

Groovy. I think the problem isn't one that can be solved with a mixer,
though.

> 00:1e.2 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation
> 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 04)
> Kernel version : 2.6.16-1.2122_FC5

Hm. I have the same chip in my Thinkpad T42p, but it's rev 01 (not 04)
and is supported just fine in 2.6.15.6-vanilla. How do you feel about
trying the latest vanilla kernel? I've just had too many strange and
screwy bugs in distro-patched kernels to be comfortable using them for
any length of time.

> # lsmod | grep snd_
[everything's cool]

I'd guess that it's a problem with the chip being too new for the
module. ICBW though. HTH anyway,

--
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin / mail: TRAP + SPAN don't belong
http://www.brainbench.com / "He is a rhythmic movement of the
-----------------------------/ penguins, is Tux." --MegaHAL