Aureal Soundcards

Knowledgebase

Request:

To enable a soundcard containing a chipset from Aureal. The chipsets are known as: Vortex1 (Au8820), Vortex2 (Au8830), and Vortex Advantage chipsets (Au8810). This works only for uniprocessor x86 machines.

You need:

Kernel 2.2.5 or higher.
Package 'linclude' or 'lx_suse' (not both) from series 'd' is installed

li>Set in the BIOS 'PnP OS' to 'No',respectively 'Non PnP OS' to 'Yes'
An audio mixer (e.g. smix, kmix, aumix found in series snd).
Speakers or headphones.
A connection cable between CD-ROM and Soundcard (optional)

Special note:

With SuSE Linux 7.1 and Kernel 2.4.x read the SDB article 'Installation of soundcards with Aureal Vortex chip'.

Procedure:

Make sure that you are logged in on your machine as root.
Verify what your chipset is by using the command: lspci -v | grep -A4 Multimedia. Determine which of three types of chipsets: Vortex1 (Au8820), Vortex2 (Au8830), and Vortex Advantage (Au8810) your soundcard is using.
Go to http://download.sourceforge.net/aureal/ to download the latest drivers. Please note that all development is now done by the kind contributors on Sourceforege.
Download au88xx*.tar.gz, where * is the most current version number, to your local computer.
Then untar the file: tar -xzvf au88xx*.tar.gz, respectively tar xIvf au88xx-*.tar.bz2
Then change into the 'aureal' directory: cd 'aureal'
Then pick one of the following commands depending on what chipset your card is (which you discovered via the lspci command).
- If you have an 8830-based card:
```
make install
```
- If you have an 8810-based card:
```
make install10
```
- If you have an 8820-based card:
```
make install20
```
Read the README file for more details.
Edit the file /etc/conf.modules. At the end of the file you will notice that the Aureal install script added two lines:
```
    
alias sound au88**
alias midi au88**
```
Where au88** is the version of the chipset. Unfortunately, the install script forgot to chnage three lines, which you must change yourself. Approximately on line 28 starts the Soundcard modules configuration. After the comments, change the lines:
```
alias char-major-14 off 
alias sound off
alias midi off
```
to
```
    
alias char-major-14 au88** 
# alias sound off 
# alias midi off
```
Of course, you will need to change the "au88**" to the chipset version you are using.
You must run: depmod -a to register these changes for your modules.
Please note that using the cdplayer does not activate the Aureal modules. This card has the ability to play cd sounds directly through its hardware, but to adjust its volume you need to launch a mixer such as: kmix or aumix. You can check later on if the modules are loaded with the command: lsmod.

List of sound cards that use the aureal chips:

Actech PCI 388-A3D
Aureal Vortex PCI
Aureal Vortex2 PCI
Aureal SQ1500, SQ2500, SQ3500
Diamond Monster Sound MX300
Diamond Sonic Impact S90
EON Bach SP901 (A3D)
Orchid NuSound 3D
Hi-Val PCI 338
Hi-Val PCI 576
I/OMagic MagicWaveV
I/OMagic MagicWaveV2
Turtle Beach Montego A3D
Turtle Beach Montego A3D II
Terratec XLerate (A3D)
TerraTec Promedia XLerate Pro
Videologic SonicVortex2
Xitel Storm VX, Platinum
Compaq All Presario Computers
Dell Dimension and Optiplex Computers
Diamond Multimedia / Micronics Micronics M280 motherboard
Hewlett Packard HP Pavilion
IBM S-Series Aptiva
iWill LE370 motherboard
Micron ClientPro, Millennia
NEC Value Star Nx
Packard Bell Europe Platinum and Pulsar Computers
Sony Computing VAIO PCV-E302D, PCV-E308DS, PCV-E314DS

See also:

Installation of soundcards with Aureal Vortex chip

Disclaimer

The origin of this information may be internal or external to Novell. While Novell makes all reasonable efforts to verify this information, Novell does not make explicit or implied claims to its validity.