ESS Solo1 screeching noise on playback

ESS Solo1 screeching noise on playback

[Zwane Mwaikambo]

I've got an ESS 1969 which on occasion (very often, almost every other 
track) just plays back a high pitched screeching noise, while at the same 
time playing at an accelerated rate. It doesn't sound like the music 
playing accelerated because the pitch remains constant. I've also noticed 
that the interrupts generated by the card increase (enough to actually 
slow down any devices sharing). Any tips/pointers on where to start 
looking would be appreciated.

Thanks,
	Zwane

solo1: version v0.19 time 11:42:43 Mar 23 2002
PCI: Found IRQ 10 for device 00:0b.0
solo1: joystick port at 0xa001
solo1: ddma base address: 0xa800

00:0b.0 Multimedia audio controller: ESS Technology ES1969 Solo-1 
Audiodrive (rev 02)
        Subsystem: ESS Technology: Unknown device 8898
        Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- 
ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
        Status: Cap+ 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- 
<TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 32 (500ns min, 6000ns max)
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 10
        Region 0: I/O ports at b400 [size=64]
        Region 1: I/O ports at b000 [size=16]
        Region 2: I/O ports at a800 [size=16]
        Region 3: I/O ports at a400 [size=4]
        Region 4: I/O ports at a000 [size=4]
        Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 1
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI+ D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA 
PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
                Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-


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Re: ESS Solo1 screeching noise on playback

[Thomas Sailer]

Zwane Mwaikambo wrote:
> slow down any devices sharing). Any tips/pointers on where to start
> looking would be appreciated.

I know that this is one of the problems of the driver. An even worse
problem is that on my rev 1 chip recording does not work.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to solve any of these problems without
the help of ESS. And ESS has been unwilling to help. Without help,
the best one can do is "shoot in the dark".

Tom

Re: ESS Solo1 screeching noise on playback

[Zwane Mwaikambo]

On Wed, 10 Apr 2002, Thomas Sailer wrote:

> I know that this is one of the problems of the driver. An even worse
> problem is that on my rev 1 chip recording does not work.
> 
> Unfortunately, I don't know how to solve any of these problems without
> the help of ESS. And ESS has been unwilling to help. Without help,
> the best one can do is "shoot in the dark".

Thanks for the feedback, what do you think of the following?

Could the screech possibly be caused by that tight loop where we try and 
push a command through in write_seq? Apparently its possible for a DMA 
completion to occur whilst that is happening (should the command be 
aborted?) Right at that moment a DMA completion interrupt also gets 
generated i believe, so would completing the command we were trying to 
send bork things somewhat? Am i right in thinking that we are DMAing 
garbage during that screeching noise?

Yes i am clutching at straws here ;)

As an aside, i noticed in the documentation, they specify that if dmasize 
is N we should send N to iobase+4 and not N-1 like an i8237.

Thanks,
	Zwane
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