Hi :) because of my troubles with the ASUS M2A-VM HDMI mobo with an integrated ATI Radeon X1250-based graphics, I made some inquiries about HDMI, that might be interesting for others too. Maybe someone knows if my inquires are correct or not.
Also something about my troubles. I run 64 Studio with the vesa driver. The problem with the vesa driver is, that I'm not only missing 3D support, but also it's impossible to increase the vertical refresh rate. After I run the proprietary ATI installer and edited the xorg.conf to the ATI driver, there wasn't a driver, there was a problem with a module, graphics were the same as with the vesa driver entry in the xorg.conf, but I run into trouble with my sound devices. Before the ATI driver there was the possibility for QJackCtl to use - the integrated HDA ATI SB sound - the HDA ATI HDMI sound - the PCI TerraTec EWX24/96 sound card - and the USB MIDI device. To clear an error from the list and some inaccuracies from a friend and to know about HDMI myself: HDMI sound seems to be independent from the ATI graphic driver. As I wrote above, there always was the possibility to chose it by QJackCtl, also when using the vesa driver, but I've to say that I only tested the TerraTec sound card and the USB MIDI devices and no other sound devices. Running hwinfo --sound I get the information - for HDA ATI SB there is Driver Status: snd_hda_intel is active Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe snd_hda_intel" - for HDA ATI HDMI ther is also Driver Status: snd_hda_intel is active Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe snd_hda_intel" that should make clear that the HDMI sound driver simply is the same as for the "normal" integrated sound, that's why the last lines of my alsa-base looks like that: # Fix indexes for the spymo DAW alias snd-card-0 snd-ice1712 options snd-ice1712 index=0 alias snd-card-1 snd-hda-intel options snd-hda-intel index=1 alias snd-card-2 snd-usb-audio options snd-usb-audio index=2 As long as 64 Studio is fine, one of the HDA ATI sound devices is hw:3 and hw:0 to hw:2 are self-explanatory. Because of the ATI graphic driver 64 Studio is broken, still after running the uninstall scrip and copying back the xorg.conf for the vesa driver I used before. Now I've three problems. The first one is, that browsing and emailing is often interrupted, no problem for emailing, because there's still enough time to send emails, but it's nearly impossible to browse the net, that's why my inquiries might be not very good. This phenomenon appears after 64 Studio is back to the vesa driver. Because the modem's LEDs for "ADSL Link/Act" and "Ethernet Link/Act" signalize that both connections are often interrupted, I checked out what will happen, if I'll disconnect ADSL or Ethernet, always with the other still connected. Doing this the Ethernet connection seems to be fine, but the ADSL connection seems to be unstable. It looks like this is just an unfortunate accident and for this 64 Studio seems to be still fine. The error might arise out of troubles my internet provider has got. The second and major problem is that after startup, most times I'm missing the TerraTec sound card or seldom the USB MIDI device. I won't report this error detailed again, because I still sent it to the list. It's possible to get the TerraTec by running alsaconf, but than all other devices will be lost. Running modprobe snd_hda_intel brings back the two HDA ATI sound devices, but modprobe snd_usb_audio won't bring back the USB midi device, maybe there is a command needed to reset usbcore or restart the soundserver. Anyway, it should be fine after startup, like it was before. This problem appears after the installation of the ATI driver and it's still there after the removal of the ATI driver. The third problem is, that after the removal of the ATI driver (resp. the ATI stuff, because there wasn't really a driver) the screen during the shutdown most times is black. I don't know weather I should try to repair or reinstall 64 Studio, because of all the needs 64 Studio won't support and that has to be adapted after the install, but I'm sure there's the need to get a NVidia graphics card. Graphics cards always need AGP or PCIe x16 as far as I know. There are some ISA, VLB, PCI cards too, but that seems to be not for general interest. For my mobo this means, that I have to remove the HDMI card. To have a multimedia Linux that won't become more worse comparing to Apple and Microsoft based multimedia computers, than Linux is in any case, I does some inquires about HDMI in general and some especially for my mobo. There are expensive graphics cards supporting HDMI, but because I'm very poor and the costs for my Linux DAW, caused by all the hardware troubles, reach the costs to a more efficient legal Windows DAW, I'm looking how to cut the losses for my Linux DAW. To have a graphic card might be better than to use an integrated graphics, because of troubles with the shared RAM needed by integrated once, even if the integrated one ought to be fine. *HDMI and SPDIF* >From the "M2A-VM HDMI specification summary", but also interesting for other mobos, because there are first informations about what to know, when there's the need to have HDMI, while HDMI is not supported at once: "[...] Graphics [...] Supports HDMI(TM) Technology with HDCP compliant [...] Supports DVI-D [...] Dual VGA output support: CRT & DVI/HDMI DVI & HDMI TV-out (YPbPr/AV/S) & DVI/HDMI Note: Simultaneous output for YPbPr, AV, S, and RGB is not supported. Note: DVI-D can not be converted to output RGB signal to CRT and isn't compatible with DVI-I. [...] High Definition Audio Realtek(R) ALC883 High Definition Audio 6-channel CODEC [...] Supports S/PDIF out through the port on the bundled HDMI card [...]" At this point I shutdown my computer and demounted the HDMI card to have a cursory look at it. The mobo has connectors for - DVI - VGA - Microphone - Audio in - Audio out The HDMI card has connectors for - HDMI - S-Video - Video - S/PDIF We are not in the good old days of QL, C64, Atari, but also without heating up the soldering station it might be possible to use S/PDIF by the HDMI card, even if the card is not in the PCIe slot. I haven't made tests, but it looks like S/PDIF will be fine just by connecting the cable of the "ASUS HDMI/AV/S/SP REV. 101G" card to the board. On the card is also a label with he information "M2A-VM HDMI <GREEN>". The HDMI card's connector, not seen from the components side, but from the other side, conduction paths are on both sides and I didn't take care if it's multilayer board: SPDIF [1][2][3][4] [1][2][3][4] YUV SPDIF 1 GND 2 SPDIFOUT 3 not in use 4 +5V YUV 2 GND With or without connecting the card to the PCIe slot S/PDIF seems only be featured as output. When using the PCIe x16 slot for an graphic card, it might be able to use S/PDIF of the HDMI card, without connecting the HDMI card to any slot, the driver seems to be the one above. In general it should be possible to use a cable from DVI-D to HDMI, I don't know what's about the DHCP copy protection and if it can be used without the proprietary ATI driver, but HDMI might be maintained without the HDMI card. Fazit: Without the HDMI card in the PCIe slot, there might be no loss of the on-board sound, even S/PDIF seems to be fine. S-Video, Composite Video, HDMI and DVI-D seems to be lost. If there's the need to have HDMI it might be possible to have it with a graphics card, that supports DVI-D, there might be no need to have HDMI featured by a HDMI connector. Internet seems to be fine again, so I will look for NVidia cards right now :). Cheers, Ralf
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