# i810 audio

## jeg42

I've seen plenty of random mentioning across the web about Intel's i810 audio and Linux. Most people have said they are unsuccesful, and can't get any sound. arts crashes within a few seconds of being launched, complaining about cpu overload. I couldn't get the alsa stuff to work either.

Has anyone had success with the i810 audio? Any help or insight would be most appreciated.

jeg

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## jezza

Hi there I'm using the Intel810 alsa driver with my laptop at the moment with no problems.  I know the default ALSA emerge will build all the sound modules for all available cards.  Try loading all the different modules via insmod/modprobe until you see something appear in /dev then you know you've hit 'gold'.

Let me know if this helps

Good luck

Jeremy.

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## duegatti

I compiled the i810 support in to my kernel and have zero problems

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## jeg42

Well, kernel support (from the latest gentoo sources) doesn't work at all for my i810 audio. I just get no sound whatsoever. I finally got alsa working with the snd-i81x.o module, but it seems pretty crappy support at best. The only mixers that do anything are headphone and PCM, and they only are sensitive to volume level changes between 0 and 35 or so.

arts no longer gives me a CPU overload error, and does make sound now, but the KMixer is screwy. Most options snap back up to 100% when you change them, except for PCM. And the Volume control has no effect whatsoever.

Anyone else with similar problems?

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## ZagiFlyer

My Dell C840 uses the i810 audio module. It works just fine, but don't forget that you also may also need the ac97 module (I did).

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## chatgris

 *ZagiFlyer wrote:*   

> My Dell C840 uses the i810 audio module. It works just fine, but don't forget that you also may also need the ac97 module (I did).

 

Where can Ifind the ac97 module?

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## modal

I'm using the i810 alsa driver, and it works great.

Try to not use the kernel module, since it sucks...use alsa instead.

```
env ALSA_CARDS="intel8x0" emerge alsa-driver
```

check out the alsa install doc in the gentoo doc section.

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## chatgris

Did that, works great except that I can't have two audio streams going at the same time..  (xmms plays, when I shut it down all my other system sounds play)  but thanks!

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## Ian Goldby

I use the Intel8x0 ALSA driver and have never had any problems with it.

Several people (including me) have found that the mixers are mis-labelled though - in particular that the main output level is controlled by the headphones fader and the Master faders do nothing. I think this is due to dodgy hardware - perhaps the i8x0 is capable of providing separate line-out and headphones out but some OEMs connect the headphones out to the jack socket on the back panel instead of the line-out.

The KDE Mixer doesn't work properly, but that is an OSS-compatibility issue. The problem is that it doesn't offer all of the available faders, and misses out crucial ones like Headphones, while putting in non-operative ones like Master. I'm hoping that KDE Mixer will soon add native ALSA support, then these problems will go away.

I've not experienced any problem with faders only working over a limited range though, or 'snapping back'. All of the faders that should do something do - that includes Headphones, 3D Control, PCM, Mic, and Mic Boost. On my hardware I don't think the other faders are connected to anything.

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## Ian Goldby

 *chatgris wrote:*   

> Did that, works great except that I can't have two audio streams going at the same time..  (xmms plays, when I shut it down all my other system sounds play)  but thanks!

 

To play multiple simultaneous streams, you need to use aRts. All of the KDE sounds go through aRts anyway, but while aRts is using the sound device, nothing else can. So that KDE always doesn't prevent any other non-KDE sound application from accessing the sound device, aRts is set to automatically suspend after a preset time if it is not doing anything - see the Sound System Control Panel.

There are two ways to get non-KDE applications to mix their sound through aRts. The first, which should work with anything is to use the artsdsp wrapper, e.g.: 

```
# artsdsp realplay
```

The second, for applications that support it, is to specify aRts as the sound output method. For example, you can emerge xmms-arts, which is an xmms plug-in that allows xmms to play through the aRts system and thus mix with other KDE sound sources.

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## chatgris

Thanks!  xmms-arts works very nicely.

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## oisch

I just wrote a short install instruction for alsa on the Asus P4PE (which has an onboard intel8x0 soundcard). Maybe it's helpful:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=255424#255424

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