[Geekzilla]

I recently bought the new Asus P5N7A-VM motherboard, which is based on Nvidia's 9300GT chipset. I installed XBMC Live 8.10, but had an issue with audio distortion/echos. After a days worth of experimenting I finally got things working.

I used gulhaj's instructions for installing the Linuxant ALSA drivers from this post. I had to add a step however. After running the 'sudo apt-get install libc6-dev' step I kept getting a 404 error for part of it. Do the rest of the steps. After the install fails, then run the following steps:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -f install

Then run the install line again. After a reboot all sound issues were resolved. I would like to thanks gulhaj for taking the time to write his instructions, without which I'd still be weighing my options. For the other Linux rookies out there, use a program called putty to copy/paste the commands from a real computer, just in case you didn't know.

The performance of the board is quite good. I currently have an E7300 in it and at factory clock speed of 2.6GHz Killa Sampla usually drops 10-12 frames, with 1 or 2 perceptible judders. I overclocked it to 3.0GHz and it drops 3 frames at the very beginning, and that's it with no judders.

[BLKMGK]

Dropping 3 frames at the start is 100% normal, no worries!

[spozen]

So all the outputs on P5N7A-VM works? (spdif and hdmi)

[Geekzilla]

spdif=yes
hdmi audio = unknown... my receiver doesn't have hdmi inputs.

[spozen]

My receiver can't take hdmi either but it would be nice to have in the future, but the drivers might be better than i hope.

[GileraGFR]

I'll be buying this board shortly, so i'll post here and let you know.

[Snowflake]

I bought it this week, and can report that HDMI audio does NOT work out of the box on XBMC Live. Searching here and through Google indicates that you'll need to add/compile some ALSA drivers if you want audio over HDMI.

Right now i'm trying to decide whether I should be spending my time hacking Live to work (audio over HDMI and VFD control for my Antec Fusion 430 being the only two issues) or whether I should just install Ubuntu first and then XBMC regular over top of that. Hacking Live isn't easy because of the persistent filesystem, and installing normal Ubuntu may not be a good idea when you're running off a USB flash drive (not sure what, if any, optimizations were done for running from Flash in Live).

[falc410]

But in the theorie the mainboard supports audio over hdmi? Because I don't have any receiver or other inputs besides hdmi on my TV. I might just want to install on it then if it does not yet work under Linux.

[rodercot]

Well I have been playing with an M3N78-VM for the past week or so trying to get either the hdmi or spdif output working so you are one step ahead if you have spdif output. this board has the vt1708b chipset I am not sure about the p5n. but I have tried live until I broke it with updates and recompiles. I have installed Ubuntu and Kubuntu both with the 2.6.27-9-generic kernel and all the latest alsa update 1.0.18A etc.

I have recompiled alsa with --all-card --all-options modprobe, alsa-base etc.. no change.

if your board use snd-hda-intel for this output I can only say good luck with the setup and report back if you have any luck.

Dave

[BLKMGK]

Working with the same board here only using a full-on Ubuntu 8.04 install. I'd be happy to work with others to try and get this figured out both for myself and for an updated Live disk. My specific goal is HDMIA audio right now, I have installed the later ALSA using this tutorial http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=962695 note that page 7(?) addresses issues with later kernels which I ran into and was able to finally compile. However, I do not yet have any sound either from Ubuntu or XBMC so I am not sure where I've screwed up. I have the latest NVIDIA drivers ENVYNG will load but they are NOT the very latest. Updating those may be my next step Any ideas or help much appreciated!

[rodercot]

I got HDMI audio working with this board tonight. See my thread on HDMI audio a Success for the so called guide) I have always been a doer not a teacher, Sorry. I will try and help you guys through it if you have any troubles.

but as always back up your files please.

Dave

[BLKMGK]

Sound now working here for movies, much thanks to Choas for figuring it out!

http://forum.xbmc.org/showpost.php?p=257...tcount=268

Sadly the Celeron couldn't cut it, had to go with an overclocked 7300 and will be trying it at stock speed soonest.