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Date:      Sat, 10 Sep 2016 20:17:46 +0200
From:      Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de>
To:        Manish Jain <bourne.identity@hotmail.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Will installing a separate sound card work?
Message-ID:  <20160910201746.e62bd384.freebsd@edvax.de>
In-Reply-To: <VI1PR02MB0974245A63E0A5938C14B131C2FD0@VI1PR02MB0974.eurprd02.prod.outlook.com>
References:  <VI1PR02MB0974245A63E0A5938C14B131C2FD0@VI1PR02MB0974.eurprd02.prod.outlook.com>

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On Sat, 10 Sep 2016 17:48:23 +0000, Manish Jain wrote:
> In my computer hardware upgrade project (which has already seen me switch 
> 3 motherboards and 2 CPU's in 1 month), I have reached a point where I need 
> to invest a bit further. My current Gigabyte GA970 motherboard is working 
> perfectly, except that the onboard sound (Realtek) is aweful, with a whole 
> lot of high-pitch hiss accompanying the sound whenever I try to play any 
> music.

That sounds terrible. Which sound driver do you currently use?

Example:

% dmesg | grep ^hda
hdac0: <VIA VT8251/8237A High Definition Audio Controller>
	mem 0xbfffc000-0xbfffffff at device 1.0 on pci128
hdac0: HDA Driver Revision: 20100226_0142
hdac0: [ITHREAD]
hdac0: HDA Codec #0: VIA VT1708_8

% dmesg | grep ^pcm
pcm0: <HDA VIA VT1708_8 PCM #0 Analog> at cad 0 nid 1 on hdac0
pcm1: <HDA VIA VT1708_8 PCM #1 Analog> at cad 0 nid 1 on hdac0
pcm2: <HDA VIA VT1708_8 PCM #2 Digital> at cad 0 nid 1 on hdac0

% cat /dev/sndstat 
FreeBSD Audio Driver (newpcm: 32bit 2009061500/i386)
Installed devices:
pcm0: <HDA VIA VT1708_8 PCM #0 Analog> (play/rec) default
pcm1: <HDA VIA VT1708_8 PCM #1 Analog> (rec)
pcm2: <HDA VIA VT1708_8 PCM #2 Digital> (play)

This machine is using a VIA on-board audio chipset, using the
snd_hda driver included in the (custom) kernel.



> I would like to solve the problem by installing a separate internal sound 
> card - the best option appears to be Asus Xonar DG PCI Internal Sound Card 
> with a C-Media CMI8786 chipset.

In my previous home system, I had a C-Media PCI sound card
(using the snd_cmi kernel module) which provided excellent
playback and recording.



> Will my idea of disabling the onboard 
> sound and installing the separate card work ?

Yes, it should work. Disabling the on-board sound is not exactly
required, but recommended (you _can_ have multiple audio "cards"
in your system, but reducing the "irritation surface" is always
a good idea).



> My motherboard's BIOS does 
> provide the option to disable the onboard sound. So I think the question 
> simply boils down to whether the CMI8786 chipset be supported by the 
> FreeBSD kernel.

Check "man snd_cmi" to find out if the chipset of that sound card
is supported. Luckily, this information is easily accessible. :-)


-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...



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