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This may be helpful to some of you who are upgrading to a newer nVidia graphics card. I just got an MSI N210-MD512H GeForce 210 so that I could take advantage of VDPAU. My motherboard, an AN-M2HD, has a built-in nVidia 7050 graphics adapter plus sound card. I just upgraded to Ubuntu Karmic 9.10 to get the nVidia 190.42 driver working via their PPA.

My problem was that the sound would work sometimes, and other times not. A friend who is an occasional kernel developer helped me track down the race condition. The new nVidia driver now supports audio over HDMI (yay for some folks) but I'm not using it, and it was breaking my onboard sound (sometimes).

The solution is to blacklist the hdmi audio. To do that, add the following line to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf:

blacklist snd_hda_codec_nvhdmi

That seems to have solved the problem after the last several reboots, but if it is a race condition, you never really know.

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I know there are now lots of guides for installation, but here are the notes I took during my install in case they are helpful for others.


Install Karmic
* Select auto login

Wifi
* Connect to network w/ password
* Save wifi key, but create blank password

Update
* System -> Administration -> update

ssh
* aptitude install openssh-server
* cp old /etc/ssh dir
* cp old /home/elvis/.ssh dir

Desktop
* Remove icons on desktop
* Alt-f2 run gconf-editor
* \apps\nautilus\desktop uncheck volumes_visible
* Turn off desktop effects
* System -> Preferences -> Appearance
* Add panels on left & right as buffer

nVidia driver
* Add ppa
* System -> Administration -> Software Sources
* add ppa:nvidia-vdpau/ppa
* add key
* sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys CEC06767
* aptitude update
* aptitude install nvidia-190-modaliases nvidia-glx-190 nvidia-settings-190
* Turn on restricted 190.42 driver
* System->Administration -> Hardware driver
* reboot before

XBMC
* Add ppa as above
* ppa:team-xbmc/karmic-ppa
* aptitude install xbmc
* Launch xbmc on login
* System -> Preferences -> startup

Sound
* System -> Preferences -> Sound
* Choose iec958
* blacklist hdmi audio to prevent conflict
* "blacklist snd_hda_codec_nvhdmi" in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Remote
* aptitude install lirc
* Choose Windows MCE (all) for remote
* Choose none for next
* Set rule for 2 sensors
* http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=892647&page=2
* or just blacklist imon
* append "blacklist lirc_imon" to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Sensors
* apt-get install lm-sensors sensors-applet
* sudo sensors-detect
* no need for disk daemon
* add hardware-sensors to panel

Root
* sudo -s
* passwd

Disk spindown
* aptitude install hdparm
* copy old hdparm settings

I have Asus' version of the 210. I'm running on the Asus M2NPV-VM and have a similar issue. My HDMI sound doesn't work at all. I've tried to use alsamixer but it reports "alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such file or directory". Any configuration for audio I've used in XBMC Live does not work and tells me the audio fails. I've blacklisted this device and its still says "failed to initialize" when i start it.

Can you offer any assistance?

Btw I'm running XBMC Live 9.11

Kill-9 Wrote:I've tried to use alsamixer but it reports "alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such file or directory".

For me this sounds as you haven't installed alsa at all.
Try:
Then you should be able to start alsamixer. Maybe you have to restart the system to load the alsa modules.

Sound via HDMI I think is not supported atm from Ubuntu or XBMC.
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By the way:
I also have bought a N210 and have some problem with sound too. I don't use sound via HDMI - I connected the coaxial sound out and at the start of xbmc I have for a few seconds no sound at all. I see in the XBMC Log that the "correct audio sink cannot be located" but after a few seconds it works.

I will try to blacklist snd_hda_codec_nvhdmi this probably this evening or tomorrow. Hope this helps!

Thanks + Cheers,
David

davidw Wrote:For me this sounds as you haven't installed alsa at all.
Try:

Code:

sudo aptitude install alsa

Then you should be able to start alsamixer. Maybe you have to restart the system to load the alsa modules.

Sound via HDMI I think is not supported atm from Ubuntu or XBMC.
---
By the way:
I also have bought a N210 and have some problem with sound too. I don't use sound via HDMI - I connected the coaxial sound out and at the start of xbmc I have for a few seconds no sound at all. I see in the XBMC Log that the "correct audio sink cannot be located" but after a few seconds it works.

I will try to blacklist snd_hda_codec_nvhdmi this probably this evening or tomorrow. Hope this helps!

Thanks + Cheers,
David

Yeah alsa is infact installed. I read through this thread and found that hes still working on support for it. Hopefully something will come up soon.

Thanks,
Kill-9

As I understand it, the limitation with the G210 and GT220 is that they have completely new onboard hardware for HDMI audio, which isn't supported yet in ALSA.

But it looks like the Nvidia driver guys are actually working on adding it: see this thread from the ALSA dev list.

blandoon Wrote:As I understand it, the limitation with the G210 and GT220 is that they have completely new onboard hardware for HDMI audio, which isn't supported yet in ALSA.

But it looks like the Nvidia driver guys are actually working on adding it: see this thread from the ALSA dev list.

Looks like the new ALSA does not fix it. I tried the new Ubuntu and it doesn't work. Damn thing :/