ISA Cards (Audio and Network) won't work

[Guest alexkiko]

I have an old PII in which I ran Windows and RedHat 9 ( 2 different hdd ).

My NIC works fine in Windows, and it worked fine ( automatically detected ) in RH9 for the last 4 years. I wanted to try a different Linux dist. so I downloaded and installed Mandriva 2007 last week.

After installation, both of my ISA cards are not being recognized at all by linux, is like the hardware doesn't exist. If I try to get some network info, I only get the Loopback. The config utilities I found show me that no audio or network hardware can be found in the PC.

I tried playing with the BIOS in my PC, changing the settings from Automatic, to manual, then changing the assigned IRQ for ISA ( so they would match what Windows shows me ). Both cards still work if I boot in Windows.

I've been looking for answers online in different forums, try to get new drivers, but nothing worked so far.

 

Anyways, here is the hardware info

 

NIC:

Encore ESL-816V ISA PnP <--- HAS REALTEK 8019AS CHIP

 

Audio:

SoundBlaster 16 PnP ISA

 

Please help

Thanks

Alex

[Guest alexkiko]

Forgot to mention that I checked the services and although "sound" service is running, I can't get to start the "alsa" service.

Also in lspci it doesn't show the cards, although it does recognize the ISA bridge in the motherboard

PLEASE HELP!!!!

[ianw1974]

According to:

 

http://www.mandriva.com/en/hardware

 

your soundcard isn't listed and neither is your network card. Maybe they dropped support for really old hardware.

[AussieJohn]

If you get the OS to install then you need to install........isapnptools and isapnptools-devel...........using MCC.

Then reboot and see if you have any better luck.

 

Cheers. John.

[Greg2]

As AussieJohn has said “install isapnptools”

 

For your audio you can try as root:

modprobe snd-sb16

for ALSA. If that doesn't work use:

modprobe sb

and set up you card with OSS instead of ALSA.

 

To see if your sound card is working (if your not sure) run as user

alsamixer

Then add the 'working' driver to /etc/modules so it's loaded at boot.

 

Sorry, but I can't help you with your NIC... as I've never used an ISA NIC with Linux.

[Guest alexkiko]

Thanks for all the help. I'm now posting from my linux pc, so as you can see I can get the network to work. After a lot of fooling around wit h configs, services, etc... I finally was able to get modprobe to run properly and manually add teh network card, although every time I restart the pc it doesn't see the card, I can now do "modprobe ne" and the card will be recognized.

If there is a script I could use to do this automatically let me know.

 

About the sound card, the "sound" service is running, I can't get "alsa" to run. I still don't have the isapnptools ( Where do I get them and how to install )

I can only run "modprobe sb", and it will recognize it as OSS card, but I can't see it anywhere in my hardware, control center, whatever. Card still doesn't work. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

I'm happy enough I can get the network up, and have access to the internet.

 

Thanks

 

Alex

[Guest alexkiko]

This is Alex again, just a quick update. I did a search for all the modules I could find for ISA Sound Blaster cards in the system, and then I tried modprobe on "snd-sb16-dsp". This was accepted and actually brought up the system, I could go to Control Center and now I was able to choose to activate the Sound System. It worked, but still is not ALSA, and I have to test if I can bring it back automatically after restart. When checking the services I'm still NOT able to start the ALSA service.

Alex

[Greg2]

OK, lets start with going up to https://mandrivausers.org/easyurpmi/index.php and setting that up. You should use 'all' repos closest to you if possible. Now with the MCC package manager or urpmi, you can install isapnptools (and many other things). Now do your 'modprobe ne' and 'modprobe snd-sb16-dsp' and open your MCC > Hardware> Look at and configure hardware, if you do not see your needed modules there to start at boot, then you may have to add them to /etc/modules with an editor manually. Post back here and I will explain how to do that. :)

[ianw1974]

/etc/modules is deprecated as far as I remember. You should use /etc/modprobe.preload instead. /etc/modules is probably just there for historical and compatibility reasons.

[Guest alexkiko]

Thanks for the replies. I did all the updates I could, and made sure afterwards that I could add some services I wanted, among them isapnptools.

Anyways, I guess I will have to manually add the modules as you suggested, since as soon as I restart neither the NIC or the Sound Card work. So far, I wasn't able to start the ALSA service, even if I manually try to restart the service, no luck. It is selected to start at bootup but it doesn't. I can only make the card work as OSS. What are the advantages / disadvantages of this?

 

Anyways, what are the commands to add the modules manually? I see one of you mentions etc/modules or etc/modules.preload

 

Thanks

 

Alex

[ianw1974]

You just edit the /etc/modprobe.preload file using vi, nano or kwrite/gedit in the X environment.

 

There should be some in there already, you just add the name of the module you need to load. For example, if the module is intel-agp or nvidia-agp, then you just add this to the bottom of the file.

 

You need root access to edit the file, so you can do:

 

kdesu kwrite /etc/modprobe.preload

 

to edit within KDE. When prompted for password, supply root password. Or, from command line:

 

su (enter root password when prompted)
nano -w /etc/modprobe.preload

 

if it fails, might be because nano isn't installed. So, you can use vi instead.