well, i had to redo linux and now it dont work. I'm on Slack 9.0 and using dropline Gnome on an nforce 2 motherboard. onboard sound and ethernet. used nvidia's drivers, and they install fine, but the sound one doesnt work. I get the following error during boot up:
insmod /lib/modules/2.4.20/kernel/drivers/sound/nvaudio.o- unresolved symbol something something
audio device failed.
modprobe nvaudio.o- cant find nvaudio.o
-anyway, i checked that directory and nvaudio.o and all the rest for my mobo are there. and then i checked rc.modules to make sure the path was right to them. i dont know what else to do. i tried reinstalling them over and over again. the wierd thing is, they didnt work after i first installed slackware and then the drivers, then i installed dropline gnome and the sound worked even though i still got the same errors during boot up, then i recompiled my kernel and had to reinstall drivers and they didnt work, so i reinstalled dropline gnome and now they still dont work.also i get an error for my nic during boot up, but i dont really care too much because i just have to type and dhcpcd eth0 and it works, but annoying nonetheless.

turns out there was no ac97 codec file is my kernel, and i didnt notice that when you recompile in the sound section you can load sound support for nvidia nforce. so i did a make menuconfig and add module support then did make modules, then make modules_install. Reloaded the sound drivers and bam sound works.

Hi, i to have made posts on this same topic. I have an FIC au13 mobo with on board nforce2 audio and its been hell to get it to work. I two had to recompile my kernel to get it to work and all was well... till now. Now i get errors from xmms saying that the device is unavailable. Its as if only one program can use /dev/dsp at once. It some times screws up when i start kde and says /dev/dsp is unavailable. Are you having this error? I used kernel 2.4.21 what did you use? What is this "ac97 codec" that you speak of? I only enabled the nforce audio as part of my kernel. I never had any luck with nvidia's drivers eather.
Thanks

well i dont know why you didnt have any luck with the nvidia drivers, they worked perfect for me after i recompiled with nforce audio support. you should recompile and make sure that is the only sound support you enable module or otherwise unless you plan to upgrade. the ac 97 codec is pretty much the standard audio codec in on-board or otherwise setups. are you sure you are installing the drivers correctly? make sure that the drivers are in the directory where your system is looking them up at boot up.
are you getting errors at boot or just when you start kde? is it consistently or is it every once in a while?

>>Quoted from arrruken
>>"turns out there was no ac97 codec file is my kernel"
I was asking what you meant by that. I never saw an option when i was compiling my kernel to enable or disable ac97 so i was wondering what you meant.

I do not know about you but i recompiled my kernel and put an * next to the nforce audio support and did not enable any other sound cards. I gave up long ago on installing the drivers as modules from nvidia.com and performed a reinstall since then.

When you say drivers are you talking about the ones that are enabled when compiling the kernel or the ones that you download from nvidia and then install as a kernel module in your system. I do not know how i could be installing them incorrectly if i only put an * by the correct option b4 compiling my kernel.

just because you have built in support for nforce audio doesnt necessarily mean it will work. in fact, mine didnt work until i built them into my kernel and then installed the nvidia drivers. the ac 97 codec is a codec that is supported by most audio drivers out now, its like the mpeg codec that is in most media players for video and the avi codec for quicktime. its just another codec for media, but, it is the most prevelant and default audio codec for audio playback, meaning if you dont have it, your sound probably wont work. generic ac 97 codec support was an option on the 2.4.18 kernel but now,2.4.20+, its not an option but it is already built in to nearly all new drivers. either way get the nforce drivers, unpack them, go to the nvaudio directory that is made and type make then make install. your sound should work. also for some reason using dropline gnome makes my sound work usually, but its a big download.

I have had the Nforce 2 for about 3 weeks and Just a few days ago my noton anti virus got messed up and also screwed up my sound on my pc. I dont have any sound and iv tried reinstalling the audio card many time but it says The device loaders for this device could not load the device driver (code 2). I wanted to kno how to get my sound working again and also with all 4 speakers because before when the sound was working I had only 2 speakers working with my creative 4.1 speakers. You can IM me on aol and tell me step by step how to reinstall my sound that would be helpful you can also just leave something here or in my email: goten4689@yahoo.com thanks - Joe

I had the same problem. I tried "lspci" and that showed a "Via VT82C686B". I re-compiled my kernel with the "VIA 82C686 Audio Codec" turned on as a module under "Sound", and now it works.

"lsmod" doesn't show any module called Via anything, but now shows a modules called "ac97_codec".

Kernel version is 2.4.20.

HTH

That's precisely the problem. As hardware mixing is currently unsupported (and doesn't look like being supported in the foreseeable future) by the nForce drivers (both the nVidia OSS drivers and the ALSA drivers) only one sound can be played at any one time unless you start fooling around with software mixing.

As for drivers, I just use ALSA. There's virtually no difference between the ALSA intel8x0 driver and the i810_audio OSS driver because they're both built from virtually the same code except the ALSA driver was whole orders of magnitude easier to get going.

Ok this is killing me. Im pretty new at linux so bear with me. I downloaded that tar file from nvidia because there were not listed for 2.4.20-20.8 kernel. I tried to make, but got errors, something about not a prototype. anyway it would not make the modules to install. Although i did patch the agpgart patch to the kernel and turned on the support for nforce chipset. i did a make dep, then restarted. Nforce2 was labled for IDE controller and stuff. No sound, or net.

Now under my old kernel 2.4.18 everything works with the exception of the chipset support. should i get rid of the 2.4.18 kernel all together, could that be my prob?

Does anyone have maybe the modules compiled for the 2.4.20-20.8
and can send them?

also where is this rc.modules thing. I am using RH 8.0 with the 2.4.20-20.8 kernel

Did you change the symlink /usr/src/linux to point to the 2.4.20-20.8 directory or is it still pointing to the 2.4.18 directory?

how? do i do that, im on gaim right now id vazhar if you can help live

ive just recently installed linux on my system with an A7N8X deluxe mobo. ive had zero problems until yesterday when my sound broke. i added nforce support in my kernel and recompiled and it. i also installed the nvidia drivers. it works fine for a while then it just decides to stop working. xmms gives me errors telling me it cant find my audio device. when i reboot it will work again but eventually will break. does anybody have any ideas on how to fix this?

arrruken,

I have the same moboas you, however, I have not managed to install the package? I have the NVIDIA_nforce-1.0-0261.tar.gz and the NVIDIA_nforce-1.0-0261.src.rpm files. Which did you use?

Please help me....I'm SO close to getting this motherboard workign perfectly, it is just this small issue.

Many thanks
Hamish

either one will work, ive used them both. i just installed linux on another nforce2 computer, and i think the best way to get linux working perfectly with an nforce2 motherboard is to recompile. on all kernels 2.4.18 and up, there is option for nforce2 ethernet and sound support. when you recompile, make sure no ethernet or sound driver is built-in, but is module supported. get rid of support for any other ethernet or sound driver besides anything nvidia, and maybe any other companies you have devices for that you might use in your system for troubleshooting. the big deal when you recompile is module support and not built-in. the difference being the "M" or the "*",(built-in), when you do a make menuconfig. if any other drivers are built-in, especially sound drivers, they will automatically try to use sound-slot-0, which means that if you try to install any other drivers, i.e. nvidia's nvaudio, nvaudio wont be able to find the audio device because there is already something using, or trying to use, the i/o address for the sound device. by getting rid of other driver support in your kernel, not only are you making your kernel smaller and faster, but you are eliminating the possibility of the wrong drivers trying to access your devices, which make the drivers which you know are for your device not work. use the compiling guide in this forum if you need help recompiling.