Puppy, ATI 5450, and HDMI TV, no desktop, has sound

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GuyllFyre
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Puppy, ATI 5450, and HDMI TV, no desktop, has sound

#1 Post by GuyllFyre »

I'm attempting to set up a "Media Player" PC so that I can watch YouTube videos and such on my nice widescreen TV.

I went out and bought an Asus video card with HDMI out and HD sound, ATI HD 5450 chipset, and currently have XP loaded and running the card with the TV.

My goal was to load Puppy Linux so that I could have a much faster loading system where the CPU was going to the video rather than the OS but I can't seem to get Puppy 528 to work. I had previously tried 431 and 525 but both of those had the same type of results but no sound either. 528 has sound but no video.

The system seems to boot normally. It gets to the boot: screen, waiting or pressing enter gets it to start loading, it gets to the point where the desktop is supposed to load, the TV goes blank, but the PC barks to let me know it has gotten to the Puppy desktop. So it's using the sound on the ATI video card but the video goes blank? Odd.

Anyone have any suggestions for me?

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#2 Post by Lobster »

Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

GuyllFyre
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#3 Post by GuyllFyre »

TV doesn't have VGA, only HDMI, so I don't see where those are helpful to me.

GuyllFyre
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#4 Post by GuyllFyre »

Anyone?

sfeeley
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#5 Post by sfeeley »

I don't have a solution, but perhaps an extra diagnostic test.

1) does it only happen on that TV? What happens if you plug in a different monitor? (This way we can start to figure if it is a problem with the computer or the monitor).

2) one possible thing to try. At the initial puppy bootscreen hit f2 for more options. There type puppy=nox (I think thats the command-- that or something similar should be listed as a choice: I'm not on a puppy computer so I can't check).
This will load puppy but not load a window manager. Eventually this should boot to a prompt. There type "xorgwizard." This will begin the windows manager configuration and video output configuration. The goal here is for you to experiment and pick something manually, rather than let puppy make a (wrong) guess for you.

3) perhaps its a driver issue-- but there I am clueless

GuyllFyre
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#6 Post by GuyllFyre »

Thanks for the info!
I might get back to that and test it that way but I decided to go a different route.

Searches on the Puppy forums with the forum search weren't yielding great results so I went to Google...with similar search pattern, only to discover multiple contributions from Puppy users regarding the poor compatibility of the ATI HD 5450 chipset. Also found similar comments from other Linux users.

Big advantage had been a direct HDMI port from the card itself, allowing "HD" audio to also pass though HDMI, one cable solution. After I had bought that ATI card, I came across a deal on HP OEM PCIe nVidia GT310 cards with DVI output. Since I had them on hand, I swapped the ATI card for the nVidia and Puppy booted and went to a desktop just fine.
I haven't tested to see if the DVI passes audio to the HDMI yet on the nVidia card but it does work with the analog audio plugged in.

I have since installed Puppy onto a second 40GB partition. XP Pro is on the primary 40GB partition, installed grub and can boot into either XP Pro or Puppy 528. The micro USB keyboard/touchpad I have looks like a remote, is RF, and works in Puppy or XP quite well. It looks right at home with the other three remotes on the coffee table.

Last night I spent the evening booting into each XP and Puppy installing nVidia drivers and getting the screen size config correct. I have XP fitting the screen properly but haven't gone into the nVidia panel to correct the overscan in Puppy. I got distracted by video.pbs.org while still in XP after I got FF7 re-arranged to my liking.

Once I get Puppy adjusted the way I like things, it will then be set to auto-boot when I turn the PC on. XP has to remain there for when my daughter comes over and wants to watch netflix stuff from the account her and her mom have.

GuyllFyre
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#7 Post by GuyllFyre »

Minor update.
HD audio passes through the DVI to the HDMI, giving audio and video from the single cable solution in XP.

Will update once tested under Puppy. Video.pbs.org has yet again distracted me.

In case anyone else wants to tinker, I've got these nVidia cards up for sale.

Can find them on my eBid auctions http://us.ebid.net/items/GuyllFyre

GuyllFyre
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#8 Post by GuyllFyre »

Another update.
Card sorta works in Puppy, getting the nvidia driver to install and work is a real PITA!

When using the nvidia settings utility, after adjusting the overscan compensation, etc, rebooting loses all of those settings.

Setting up ALSA gets the nVidia HD audio working but then on reboot, it goes back to using the on-board analog sound.

Both of these things are extremely annoying, to say the least.

Any suggestions on getting this stuff to work or should I just stick with XP which, upon installation, adjustment, and sound settings, works...

sfeeley
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#9 Post by sfeeley »

Card sorta works in Puppy, getting the nvidia driver to install and work is a real PITA!
in setup -- > setup --> quickpets --> drivers there is an option for installing nvidia drivers. Did you try this? Might be easier and more effective?

Sorry I don't have any suggestions for the persistence issue-- i think I recall seeing posts about locking which drivers are loaded at boot, but can't remmeber where--hopefully somebody better informed will chime in

GuyllFyre
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#10 Post by GuyllFyre »

sfeeley wrote:
Card sorta works in Puppy, getting the nvidia driver to install and work is a real PITA!
in setup -- > setup --> quickpets --> drivers there is an option for installing nvidia drivers. Did you try this? Might be easier and more effective?
This is how I did it, ran through the xorgconfig, it probed, says it set up.
I then tried running the nvidia config utility, it told me it had an issue, that it was not running the nvidia driver, and I should go to commandline and run nvidia-config, which didn't work, so I ran xorgconfig, instead of probe, chose the nvidia driver, and it set up and works with the driver now.

What is not happening is saving the settings from the nvidia setup utility. It's hooked to my TV and I have to adjust the overscan to fit the desktop within the constraints of the TV. I go through that, then reboot to make sure the settings stay and they don't, it's all back at default.

GuyllFyre
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#11 Post by GuyllFyre »

I give up, this is too much like work.

peterw
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HDMI and Sound

#12 Post by peterw »

Hi GuyllFyre

I was researching the problem, since I have recently purchased an ASROCK E350M1 which has a HDMI output and I am thinking of using it in my Media Centre. The video on a Samsung TV is good, but sound does not work. This is the same situation in Puppy (recent versions) and in Mint and openSUSE. I have come across the web site below which may help. I have not had the opportunity of trying any of the tips it contains yet.

http://maketecheasier.com/setup-hdmi-di ... 2011/01/05

One point I was puzzled about was your reference to DVI and HDMI with sound. As I understand it, if you use a DVI to HDMI converter you will not get sound.

Best of luck if you try the advice.

peterw

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#13 Post by Puppyt »

OK I jumped first and should've looked instead...:(
Thought I'd support ATI due the recent publicity around Nvidia's reported dropping of future Linux support. So early this week I bought 2 ASUS HD 5450 fanless, low-profile cards (1GB DDR3) in two PentiumD motherboards, 4 and 5 GB RAM. Puppy Linux pupplets only.
In the blue corner, the 5GB machine will serve as a media and gaming center, using HDMI to the LCD TV.. Sc0ttman's "Akita" beta10 (Puppy 412/Wary5 hybrid - non-PAE) is running on that and recently on his thread I see he's working on that issue. Installed his latest ATI-catalyst driver and I now have video but no sound via HDMI.
In the red corner I've connected the 4GB via DVI o my 19" ViewsonicVX1932wm. No audio via the monitor there either as yet, but I'm running TaZoC's Lighthouse 64-bit 5.14 with his latest-supported ATI-catalyst driver.
So, incomplete results so far after a few minutes running, but I'm going to update the bases and drivers for both pupplets, provide feedback on the respective threads and post back to this thread in a few daze.
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peterw
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HDMI and Sound

#14 Post by peterw »

Hi Puppyt

I now have sound via HDMI for both a puppy Fatdog and Mythbuntu.

With Fatdog 64 (601) you have VLC and if you play a video and go to Audio/AudioDevice you will see the option to select sound via HDMI. In addition, there is a useful icon called "shares" and it quickly reveals other PC shares with videos on them, etc. Click on a video and it streams well.

With Mythbuntu, you have to go through the set up procedure to select the right output. Can't remember the details of that now. However, if you start the PC before the TV is on it will not initialise the HDMI sound. You have to initialise it by pressing Ctrl/Alt/F1 and then Cntrl/Alt/F7. I mention this because you may experience this effect.

Regards and good luck with your endevours.

Peterw

Puppyt
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#15 Post by Puppyt »

Thanks peterw :)
I was entirely wrong about my assumption of getting audio through a dvi cable between card and monitor. Chasing my tail with that one...
Thanks very much for your suggestion of VLC - it's in LH64 too, but the 'audio devices' option is greyed out and unselectable. I've mucked about with alsa settings also - I can see the card audio specs (HDMI) using the "aplay -L" command in the console, but dunno yet how to implement that info as the alsa mixer gives me an "S/PDIF" issue, and its listed as [off] - which I guess it's been muted somewhere. I'll give it another few rounds tomorrow before I start pleading for spoon-feeding with the alsa gurus on the forum,
Cheers!
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peterw
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HDMI and Sound

#16 Post by peterw »

Hi Puppyt

Lighthouse has an older kernel than Fatdog 64 601. Also the VLC's are not the same. As it happens I have a copy of Lighthouse and tried it with the Samsung TV and my E350M1 board with in built Radion HD6310 graphics. It is as you say, the audio devices option is greyed out. Fatdog will work.

Regards

Peterw

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