• Registered: 2011-11-06
  • Posts: 10

Topic: Rme Multiface II on Debian - Suddenly not working anymore

Hi,
I have a problem. I use Debian 6, and had no problem so far using my Multiface II + HDSP Pci Express. But suddenly, and I have no idea how and when, the card is not seen by my system, and the Host led on the Multiface II is on... When I do a "aplay -l" all I got is this :

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 2: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: ATI HDMI [ATI HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I used to have the HDSP device. As I said, no problems listening to music or else.

Can someone help me ? I have absolutely no idea what to do to get my soundcard to be seen again

Thank you,

Arnaud

  • Registered: 2011-11-06
  • Posts: 10

Re: Rme Multiface II on Debian - Suddenly not working anymore

No one ? I can't find anything online about this. Is there a way to "reboot" Debian to make him see the card again ? fryingpan

  • From: Ruhrgebiet, Germany
  • Registered: 2010-11-14
  • Posts: 30

Re: Rme Multiface II on Debian - Suddenly not working anymore

Can you post the output of lspci, perhaps the card is really malfunctioning. I'm using the same configuration for some time now and never had any problems. Neither on archlinux, fedora or gentoo.

  • Registered: 2011-11-06
  • Posts: 10

Re: Rme Multiface II on Debian - Suddenly not working anymore

Thank you for your answer !

So I typed in lspci, and it didn't mention the HDSP card... It freaked me out, so I went to my Windows partition, where the card still run smoothly. Then I went back on Debian, and the card has returned, fully fonctionnal ed:

That weird, it's solved but I don't know how and why...

5 Reply by Arnaud06 (edited by Arnaud06 2012-04-13 14:51:42)

  • Registered: 2011-11-06
  • Posts: 10

Re: Rme Multiface II on Debian - Suddenly not working anymore

Actually the problem is not solved... It just that sometimes the card is mounted, sometimes it is not et and the host led is on...

The only thing I did on my system is to add this line to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf :

options snd_hda_intel index=-2

Why is this random ?

  • Registered: 2011-11-06
  • Posts: 10

Re: Rme Multiface II on Debian - Suddenly not working anymore

I've got this when I type hdspmixer :
HDSPMixer 1.6 - Copyright (C) 2003 Thomas Charbonnel <thomas@undata.org>
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
HDSPMixer is free software, see the file COPYING for details

Looking for HDSP cards :
Card 0 : RME Hammerfall DSP at 0xfe6f0000, irq 17
Uninitialized HDSP card found.
Use hdsploader to upload configuration data to the card.
Card 1 : HDA ATI HDMI at 0xfe9ec000 irq 19
Card 2 : USB Device 0x46d:0x821 at usb-0000:00:12.2-1, high speed
No Hammerfall DSP card found.

If I type hdsploader, even in root, I've got "command not found".

  • From: Ruhrgebiet, Germany
  • Registered: 2010-11-14
  • Posts: 30

Re: Rme Multiface II on Debian - Suddenly not working anymore

Try install alsa-firmware. I think it is missing. That would explain why the card worked after booting windows. Windows has loaded a firmware in the multiface fpga. Linux would do this if it is installed. hdsploader is part of alsa-firmware-loaders

  • Registered: 2007-07-16
  • Posts: 45

Re: Rme Multiface II on Debian - Suddenly not working anymore

There is not enough information for people to meaningfully help you. Djselbeck has given you pointers, alsa firmware may not be there but it seems unlikely if the card was working under Debian previously.
If you change alsa-base.conf and it didn't work, have you tried changing it back? There are pages on the interwebs about getting an HDSP card working but requires work on your part including this one from Linux Journal
As mentioned the firmware needs to be loaded, but not only that it needs to be loaded in the correct order if I remember correctly. As well as this, distro packages can sometimes be incorrectly configured as has happened and reported here with Ubuntu 11.04.
A quick fix might be to try and remove that line in alsa-base.conf disable your onboard soundcard in the bios and power-cycle everything (including the mfaceII box).

GNU/Linux
  • Registered: 2011-11-06
  • Posts: 10

Re: Rme Multiface II on Debian - Suddenly not working anymore

Thank you both for your help ! The problem was indeed the firmware that wasn't loaded properly. I made some research and fix the problem. I still have to load it manually but I'll search a little longer to find how to make it happen on boot up.
Thanks again !