Salix OS

Gapan,

well, thanks for the time zone hint! Indeed, I had to change it to "no summertime"

DMA settings, yes...how can I explore this in Linux?
Or is the only way to get back to BIOS and the adapter card settings/descriptions?

Is DMA valid for SCSI drives?

@ gapan: Modern CD-Audio players play the same way than CD-Rippers do. The extract the audio data and send it as PCM to the soundcard. In the past the CD-Players only started the play process of the CD drive, which than acted like a real CD-Player: the drive sent the signal over an analog output to a line-in at the soundcard. The software on the PC had nothing to do with it. Some CD drives even hat the play button on the front.

Hi,

I checked /proc/dma and there is just DMA 4 used for cascading. No other DMA in use.
Seems, as Thenktor indicated, DMA usage in modern PCs is unlikely...

I will get grip and check further!

funny thing that!

Grip does play the CD, but not via the soundcard

I had to get the earplugs from my mp3player, plugged them in the front earphone jack and voila!

Not exactly what I want but...

(happens with both CD drives)

To check DMA usage you have to use "hdparm -i /dev/hda" and watch for the "*":

DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2

But this won't work for SCSI devices. You have to use sdparm, but I don't think that DMA is really used there.

jpg153 wrote:I had to get the earplugs from my mp3player, plugged them in the front earphone jack and voila!

Front jack of what? The drive? Then it's the old method of playing CDs. You need a cable from the CD-drive to your soundcard then.

Hi,

as far as I remember (but will check after breakfast) both drives have a cable connection to the soundcard!
But, I will check

The DMA Gapan was referring to was probably not the one you are thinking of!
Me (and Gapan?) were thinking of DMA channels in terms of soundcards! - back in time when the Soundblaster card was the ultimate standard, requiring 1 IRQ and 2 DMA channels for 8bit and 16bit transfers!
They are truly different from DMA transfer modes for harddisc drives.
And right, SCSI works different...

jpg153 wrote:Me (and Gapan?) were thinking of DMA channels in terms of soundcards! - back in time when the Soundblaster card was the ultimate standard, requiring 1 IRQ and 2 DMA channels for 8bit and 16bit transfers!

Long, long ago This only was important with ISA soundcards. The first PCI soundcard ended it... and that's good

So,

good news is: I was right, at least to 50% - the CD outline is connected to the soundcard!
Bad news: we still dont know why CDs are not played as they should, neither with Totem nor with with exaile nor with grip...

And, my CPU fan is making noise Its just one year old or so...
Typical situation: old hardware so normally you wont spend a EURO for it. But buy a new PC just because of a damn fan

Check alsamixer if your soundcard line-ins are muted.