Anyone have any problems w/ SoundBlaster Live?


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I'm looking at new sound cards (since my onboard one won't work w/ Linux).

The SoundBlaster Live! is only 50 bucks and that is about my price range. How is it's compatibility w/ Linux? I'm interested in ALSA not OSS.

Can you recommend another card?

Thanks!

-Nic

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thats fine for pretty much everything. you dont need anything better unless youre an audiophile. the soundblaster audigy is great for the price.

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Using a Soundblaster Live here with ALSA and experience no problems (even running XMMS, a game with sound, and using Teamspeak to talk to clanmates).

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Grr...this is making me mad.

Ok, first my onboard CMI8738 doesn't work,

i get:

"Can't grab IRQ 19"

"snd-cmipci: probe of ....... failed with error -16"

After messing with that for a few hours (after I messed w/ it in Mandrake 9.2 for weeks and didn't get anywhere),

I go out and by an Audigy LS because it was only like 20 bucks more then the SB Live! Then I bring it home and find that there is NO support for it (or at least no support that is out of beta).

so I take it back and pick up the SB Live!, plug it in. Linux finds the new hardware and sets it up. But I'm still getting no sound. Instead i get another case of:

"EMU10K1_Audigy: probe of 0000:00:0a.0 failed with error -16"

but no mention of an IRQ problem. Where do I go to look up these really informative errors like "error -16"

Google doesn't seem to help. Alsa web page doesn't seem to help either.

here is my modules.conf:

--------------------------------------

probeall scsi_hostadapter imm ppa

probeall usb-interface usb-uhci ehci-hcd

alias char-major-116 snd

alias snd-card-0 snd-emu10k1

alias char-major-14 soundcore

alias sound-slot-0 snd-card 0

alias /dev/dsp sound-slot-0

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

---------------

Shall I post anything else?

Any help would be REALLY appreciated.

Thanks!

-Nic

Edited by nic
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"EMU10K1_Audigy: probe of 0000:00:0a.0 failed with error -16"

well theres one problem. if you have a live plugged in it shouldn't be EMU10K1_Audigy, it should just be EMU10K1. That's my sound card. I have no problems with it.

I can be in Enemy Territory, Teamspeak and have XMMS open. Using ALSA.

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hmm..ok

I think i'm going to have to return the soundcard anyway because its already fried.

When I was in windows, the phono plug was about half way out of the jack and so music was only coming out of one speaker. when i noticed i went behind the computer and plugged it in. After I did that all the sound that comes out of the card is jacked up.

What a POS.

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I can also vouch that the SBLive!'s jacks do wear out fairly quickly with use. My S/PDIF jack is going out for me (I've had it for about 5 or 6 years though).

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I use alsa with the onboard intel audio. I find that its quality is very nice. But only when I have it hooked up to my stereo through the line out. The laptop speakers suck and I can fine tune the sound through my stereo.

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Update:

Ok, I switched PCI slots for the SB Live 5.1 card and now the sound works in windows w/o noise *whew*.

Now I tried to reinstall Mandrake 10 thinking that maybe the Audigy LS messed something up.

But I'm still getting the exact same error message in my dmesg

"EMU10K1_Audigy: probe of 0000:00:0a.0 failed with error -16"

Is my system just doomed to not have sound in linux :( :( :( :( :'(

Atlas: how do I not get the "_Audigy" part? The driver is set to EMU10K1 in modules.conf and from what I can tell in Harddrak.

*sigh*

-nic

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