I've recently installed gentoo on nVidia nForce3 250Gb board. It has a built in AC'97 Audio Controller with SPDIF output. I followed the Gentoo Linux ALSA Guide (http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml) after which speaker-test produced no sound (no errors either though). I emerged madplay and mplayer, they also played no sound. I read that to get digital sound to work, this was required in your .asoundrc: pcm.!default { type hw card 0 device 2 } After adding that mplayer could play sound excellently, however, speaker-test would give this error: Channels count (1) not available for playbacks: Invalid argument Setting of hwparams failed: Invalid argument There's nothing obviously wrong in dmesg or any other log file. The volume is all the way up for everything. I am definitely in the audio group. Feel free to see my discussion in the genoo forum at http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-704854-highlight-.html if I've left anything out of here. Reproducible: Always lspci: 00:00.0 Host bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 250Gb Host Bridge (rev a1) 00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 250Gb LPC Bridge (rev a2) 00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation nForce 250Gb PCI System Management (rev a1) 00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation CK8S USB Controller (rev a1) 00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation CK8S USB Controller (rev a1) 00:02.2 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation nForce3 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a2) 00:05.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation CK8S Ethernet Controller (rev a2) 00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation nForce3 250Gb AC'97 Audio Controller (rev a1) 00:08.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK8S Parallel ATA Controller (v2.5) (rev a2) 00:09.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK8S Serial ATA Controller (v2.5) (rev a2) 00:0a.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK8S Serial ATA Controller (v2.5) (rev a2) 00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 250Gb AGP Host to PCI Bridge (rev a2) 00:0e.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 250Gb PCI-to-PCI Bridge (rev a2) 00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration 00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map 00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller 00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AQ [Radeon 9600] 01:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AQ [Radeon 9600] (Secondary) 02:06.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host Controller (rev 80) 02:08.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 SE] (rev 01) 02:08.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 SE] (Secondary) (rev 01) 02:09.0 Ethernet controller: ADMtek NC100 Network Everywhere Fast Ethernet 10/100 (rev 11) uname -a Linux donny 2.6.25-gentoo-r7 #9 SMP Tue Aug 19 23:35:01 EDT 2008 i686 AMD Sempron(tm) Processor 3100+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux $ aplay -L default:CARD=CK8S NVidia CK8S, NVidia CK8S Default Audio Device front:CARD=CK8S,DEV=0 NVidia CK8S, NVidia CK8S Front speakers surround40:CARD=CK8S,DEV=0 NVidia CK8S, NVidia CK8S 4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers surround41:CARD=CK8S,DEV=0 NVidia CK8S, NVidia CK8S 4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers surround50:CARD=CK8S,DEV=0 NVidia CK8S, NVidia CK8S 5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers surround51:CARD=CK8S,DEV=0 NVidia CK8S, NVidia CK8S 5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers null Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
I suspect this is a configuration problem rather than an actual bug, but you are in good hands with beandog on the forum -- he is one of the alsa devs. If he (or another alsa dev) determines it is a config problem, he'll probably close this bug as "invalid". Don't be alarmed, it just means the forum thread is the right place to continue troubleshooting.
