SDB:Installing the MCP 51/61 nVidia nForce onboard sound card

From openSUSE

Version: 10.2

Situation

You have recently installed openSUSE 10.2 and configured everything except for the integrated sound card which you have difficulty installing. You run alsconf to install the legacy driver, but get the "The kernel module snd-xxxx for sound support could not be loaded. This can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters." You ran the hwinfo --sound command and the output shows no mention of any sound driver. You opened the /etc/modprobe.conf/ file, you noticed there is no module entry for your sound card. This problem is caused by the absence of alsaconf source code in openSUSE 10.2 kernel for some of the onboard sound cards, e.g. the MCP 51/61 nVidia nForce onboard sound card chipset.

Procedure

Download the latest linux source code codec for the 2.2.14 or later kernel from the link below:

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=24&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false#High%20Definition%20Audio%20Codecs

Below is the supported sound card types for the version 3.3 codec:

Supported AC97 Codec

ALC100,100P
ALC200,200P
ALC650D
ALC650E
ALC650F
ALC650
ALC655
ALC653
ALC658
ALC658D
ALC850
ALC101
ALC202
ALC250
ALC203

HD Audio codec

ALC260
ALC262
ALC268
ALC660
ALC660VD
ALC861
ALC861VD
ALC880
ALC882
ALC883
ALC885
ALC888
ALC889A

Types of supported controller

Azalia controller:ALC880 ALC882 ALC260 ALC262 ALC883 ALC885 ALC888

Card ID
 Intel ICH6 ICH7
 snd-hda-intel
 ATI chipset
 snd-atiixp

AC97 controller: ALC655 ALC650 ALC250 ALC255

Card ID
Intel ICH6 ICH7
SiS 7012
Nvidia
snd-intel8x0

VIA controller: Via8233 Via686a

Card ID
 snd-via82xx

ATI Chipset

Card ID
 snd-atiixp

Automatic Installation

To automatically install the codec execute:

 ./install

Manual Installation

To manually install the codec follow these procedure:

Notice: SUSE Distribution must install the ncurses package

1. unzip source code with

tar -xfvj alsa-driver-1.0.xx.tar.bz2

2. Turn on sound support (soundcore module, default turn on)

3. Compile the source code:

cd alsa-driver-1.0.xx
./configure
make
make install
./snddevices

4. You can alternatively run alsaconf at this juncture to auto-install the sound driver and codec.

5. Edit your /etc/modules.conf or conf.modules depending on the distribution.

snd-xxxx is the card ID.

6. Copy and paste this to the bottom of your /etc/modules.conf or /etc/modprobe.conf file.

# ALSA portion
     alias char-major-116 snd
     alias snd-card-0 snd-xxxx     
   # OSS/Free portion
     alias char-major-14 soundcore
     alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
   # card #1
     alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
     alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
     alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
     alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
     alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

7. save and quit the modified modprobe.conf or the modules.conf file (depending on the kernel flavour) with:

:wq!

8. Reboot your computer

9. Run alsamixer in the konsole to configure the sound card:

Hit the M key once to activate (OO) and once again to deactivate (MM) any of the alsamixer functions .
Use the top Arrow key to increase the volume of any of the alsamixer functions
Use the bottom Arrow key to decrease the volume of any of the alsamixer functions

Troubleshooting

1. If you are unable to compile the source code, rename the /usr/src/linux-2.x to /usr/src/linux.

2. To add the SPDIF functionality, download, unzip and install the alsa-lib-1.0.9 and alsa-utils-1.0.9a packages from www.alsa-project.org.