# How to get nforce2 audio & eth working for 2.4.x & 2

## hollywoodb

Thought I'd share my experiences with my nforce2 motherboard under linux.  Please add anything I forgot to mention.

nVidia has released drivers for the nforce2 motherboards, available at nvidia.com's driver download page.  If you follow the instructions there you won't have a problem.

However:

The nvaudio driver can be a little buggy at times.  It is based on the ac97_codec and i810_audio OSS drivers which are part of newer kernels.  I recommend if you are not going to use ALSA to use the ac97_codec and i810_audio (AC'97 and Intel 8x0 audio) compiled as modules.

I recommend above all to use ALSA.  again, the intel 8x0 alsa driver works fine with nforce audio.  ALSA is a bit more complicated to configure, but if you follow the directions on alsa-project.org you shouldn't have any trouble.  ALSA is now available as part of the 2.6.x series kernel releases. That means that you can use menuconfig or xconfig and select nforce audio to be compiled into the kernel or as modules with the new kernel series. 

The nvnet driver may not compile against newer kernel versions (like the 2.6.x series).  However there is a solution.  A couple of good people in the opensource world have reverse-engineered the driver.  That means you can add nforce2 onboard ethernet support to 2.4.x and 2.6.x kernels without using nvnet. They call this GPL'd driver "forcedeth".  It is available as a kernel patch, with instructions on how to apply this patch available.

Once you apply the forcedeth patch to your kernel it will be listed as 'expiremental' under network devices and onboard ethernet controllers.  It has a couple very minor bugs which won't affect most users, and it takes a second or two longer to init the driver, but I've been using it with no problems.

My current configuration is:

2.6.0-beta11 kernel with forcedeth patch applied

using alsa compiled into the kernel (not as modules because I never have a need to unload the driver)

using forcedeth to enable nforce ethernet (also compiled into kernel)

works flawlessly.

I have also used the OSS (ac97 and i810) modules with kernel versions 2.4.x along with nvnet with no problems except that it seems sound quality and support is a little better with alsa.

I have also used nvaudio and nvnet in conjunction with 2.4.x series kernels, and would recommend using the OSS modules mentioned above instead of nvaudio.

I have also used the alsa driver and nvnet in conjunction with 2.4.x series kernels. In theory it should work as well as alsa compiled with the 2.6.x kernels, but for some reason I seem to have fewer issues using the 2.6.x kernels.  However I still recommend using alsa over nvaudio or the OSS modules with any kernel, especially since alsa supports OSS emulation.

My best experience by far has been using the 2.6.0-beta11 kernel with forcedeth for ethernet and alsa compiled in, as I mentioned above.

NOTE:  Gentoo users, there is a 2.6 kernel with the forcedeth patch applied in the portage tree. It is actually the very kernel I'm using. the ebuild is:

sys-kernel/gentoo-dev-sources/gentoo-dev-sources-2.6.0_beta11-r1.ebuild

Feel free to contact me with any questions. cheers.

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## Richie

Hi, thanks for your post!

I'm using the 2.6.0 kernel, with alsa and forcedeth. Works like a charm, except that every time I boot I have to restart the nv net with:

```
/etc/init.d/net.eth0 restart
```

in order to make the net work. If I don't I can't use the card and get this message in dmesg for every communication attempt:

NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out

Any clues what might be causing this?

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## gmarceau

What kinds of problems was the nvaudio driver giving you? It hasn't given me any trouble yet, but I would like to know what to watch for.

Also, did you get 3d acceleration working for the on-board video? To me, this is the trouble maker. I've found post discussing conficts between nforce on-board video and the ACPI, the APIC, the AGP, the RENDER X extension, and even with 24 bit colors mode.

I describe the crash I get here : https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=117713

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## Richie

nvaudio (from 2.6 kernel) works very well, stable and all, good sound quality. However, the mixer is a bit buggy, 3D control kind of works, but the scale is wrong. It reaches max at a quarter of the scale, then again at half and three quarters.. not that I care since I don't use that particular function anyway =) It should be noted that I have this problem with the intel8x0 alsa driver too.

The nvaudio driver is imo the best you get at the moment. Would be nice if it could take full use of the soundstorm though =) I only use 2 speaker mode, but hardware mixing would be nice..

The graphics part:

I do not have built in graphics, but I have a GeForce4 Ti 4800 SE (agp8x) which I had working with full accelleration, 2D and 3D  in 2.4 kernel, but it would only work with acpi off, boot params = acpi=off, pci=noacpi. With acpi enabled I got garbage ascii screen when starting X with hard lock. It seems a lot ppl have issues with this.

At the moment I use XFree's nv driver, it works, acpi is happy, but ofcourse it's unusable when it comes to 3d and as far as I know it runs in pci mode or the lowest possible agp.

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## Snake007uk

hi,

im using the builtin intel driver with alsa for audio its fine now and then it speeds up mp3's ?? any idea on that

also the kernel has forcedeth driver builtin but the system seems to crash randomly ?

i have pre-emptive could this be the problem ? if i dont sue the network card the system seems very stable ? 

but the soudn problem is totaly off my head ? any ideas ?

Snake

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## ferrarif5

 *Richie wrote:*   

> Hi, thanks for your post!
> 
> I'm using the 2.6.0 kernel, with alsa and forcedeth. Works like a charm, except that every time I boot I have to restart the nv net with:
> 
> ```
> ...

 

I had to revert back to 2.4.xx from 2.6 kernel because whenever someone accesses my computer via LAN it just crashes the whole box, I can browse the net without any problems but as soon as LAN is used just freezes.

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## Snake007uk

ok i figured out my problem, i have a ASUS A7N8X deluxe board,

first thing MAKE SURE you DO NOT select APIC in the kernel !! also disable it in the bios. if you want to use both Network adapters on the board compile the 3COM drivers and the Forcedeth drivers aswell (although imjust usin 3com) Kernel 2.6 works just fine now  :Smile:  no crashing which i positive was due to APIC

Snake

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