1004 zotac MAG and ZBOX video playback problems - SOLVED!

[tompin2]

Dear Friends,

Finally after making the big decision of migrating to 1004 (from a working 810)    I am facing some issues with the video playback.  The problem is that (on both) there is no video playback, only sound, I only the the black square box where the video should be playing.  If I go to KDE desktop, xine and mplayer works perfectly.  I found that if I change the ui orbiter from v2 to v1 without alpha blend and open gl stuff I get the video output  but if I mess it up by fw or rw it will go away until Quick Reload the router.   Any hints???
As feedback to all, for the zotac MAG installation was completely smooth, even hdmi audio during avwizard but for the ZBOX im still fighting with the hdmi audio.  Hopefully by updating alsa from 1.22 to 1.25 fill fix the problem because the card is not even detected by aplay.

Video playback issues are not corrected by updating video drivers.  I installed 295 at the zbox and the problem is persistent
DENON 2311 via usb-serial cable was plug&play detected and also LG LCD screen.  

I guess I will have to go back to 810 before my wife kills me.  Before she hated the "geek" stuff by having all videos  and home automation on the TV, now she can't live without it!!!... so she continues complaining hahahahaha.... who can understand them... :S!

Cheers,

T

[DragonK]

Hi,

Can you maybe list the model numbers of you MAG and ZBOX units.

Karel

Edit:: Typo

[l3mce]

This would be me.

So, both of these boxes were working in 0810, and now neither work on 1004? That is definitely not news I want to hear.

At this moment in time, you do not need to update your own driver manually. It does what it needs to do, based on what is needed, though HDMI audio might requre a little massage (it also upgrades your alsa version) based on requirements.
If you would, please, ssh into the core, and sudo ssh moonXX (where XX is the MD number) and just copy and paste the following into each MD and pastebin or post the results here.

Code: [Select]

lspci -nn | grep VGA
grep 'Driver' /etc/X11/xorg.conf
apt-cache policy pluto-nvidia-drivers
apt-cache policy nvidia-glx-260
Lastly, how did you install? Snapshot or network? If snapshot, please note which one. Did you change any of the settings in web admin?

You do not need to revert to 810. I will get you up and running. If you want to drop into IRC I can get you going in short order, but I need to figure out why this is not happening automagically.

[tompin2]

Hi Karel and L3mce,

Last night I was sooo tired that I didn't had the energy to write the entire story, so Ill try to explain a little bit more for education purpose only

Karel:
ZOTAC ZBOX model :1d41
ZOTAC MAG  Ill get this info later

L3mce:
Installation of the core was from a snapshot, Ill get the number later, Im not at home yet.  What I really did is that the Core was updated/upgraded several times until last week when I started doing both md's.   Both md's were image rebuild twice just to make sure it was done with the latest upgrades.

What where the issues:
MAG: no video playback unter UI V2, also no screensaver available (moving background images), the rest worked perfectly.  Sound via HDMI by only selecting it on the wizard, no issues during the entire process of the wizard.  Downgrading the UI to v1 I was able to watch videos but only one :S, if I try to load another, the video box was gone

ZBOX: same as above except no audio.

Both machines played video perfectly within KDE

I left the MAG as control box and started messing up with the zbox.  Last night after upgrading nvidia drivers to 295 It did nothing to solve the video problem until I did something else, apt-get upgrade last night, it did upgraded something else because I got again the avwizard and after it.  Video is perfect.  I believe it was not related to the upgrade, I believe it was related to running the avwizard after upgrading the video drivers.  I will try to do the same with the MAG (but I will get l3mce info first, sounds interesting, before erasing the evidence!.)
After manually upgrading ALSA to 1.25, aplay and mixer sees nvidia, unmuted all the channels but still no sound.  I guess Im closer to success, I hope!

As soon as I get back home Ill post the scripts results and details.

Cheers,

T

[l3mce]

These id41s are going to be the death of me. I need to just buy one.

Ok... so... the new snapshots, if your pciid requires it, will install the 295 driver and update alsa to .24, which is all that is necessary except for 5 weirdos out there... which you are very unlikely to have.

No upgrading or updating should be necessary... you also don't need to run Diskless_CreateTBZ.sh

You actually don't even have to dl a whole new snap. Just rename the one you have to the one you want, apt-get install zsync, and type (for instance):
zsync http://linuxmce.iptp.org/snapshots/LMCE-1004-20120524173925987.iso.zsync
Should cut the dl in half at least.

Audio over hdmi on that id41 is a little bit of a mystery. I believe you will need to add:
options snd-hda-intel model=auto
to the end of /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf  and we may need to add something like:
 pcm.!default {
  type plug
  slave {
      pcm "hw:1,7"
      rate 48000
  }
 }
or perhaps pcm "hw:0,3" I really need to get my hands on one of these... I am just guessing. Anyway, give the new snap a try... it intends to handle these sort of situations... but until I get one, I can't fix one.

[tompin2]

Thanks l3mce,

One quick question, do I have to to this on the router also, what about the other md (the MAG), should I do the zsync? Will this correct the video issues?
I'll try the hdmi audio changes and keep you posted. 
BTW, the MAG is the INTEL ATOM N330, NVIDIA ION

Thanks for all your help.

T

[tompin2]

This would be me.

So, both of these boxes were working in 0810, and now neither work on 1004? That is definitely not news I want to hear.

At this moment in time, you do not need to update your own driver manually. It does what it needs to do, based on what is needed, though HDMI audio might requre a little massage (it also upgrades your alsa version) based on requirements.
If you would, please, ssh into the core, and sudo ssh moonXX (where XX is the MD number) and just copy and paste the following into each MD and pastebin or post the results here.

Code: [Select]

lspci -nn | grep VGA
grep 'Driver' /etc/X11/xorg.conf
apt-cache policy pluto-nvidia-drivers
apt-cache policy nvidia-glx-260
Lastly, how did you install? Snapshot or network? If snapshot, please note which one. Did you change any of the settings in web admin?

You do not need to revert to 810. I will get you up and running. If you want to drop into IRC I can get you going in short order, but I need to figure out why this is not happening automagically.

l3mce, Here are the results for the MAG, do you need for the zbox even tough
 video is working?

Code: [Select]

root@moon51:/home/linuxmce# lspci -nn | grep VGA
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation ION VGA [10de:087d] (rev b1)

root@moon51:/home/linuxmce# grep 'Driver' /etc/X11/xorg.conf
    Driver         "mouse"
    Driver         "kbd"
    Driver         "nvidia"

root@moon51:/home/linuxmce# apt-cache policy pluto-nvidia-drivers
W: Unable to locate package pluto-nvidia-drivers
root@moon51:/home/linuxmce# apt-cache policy nvidia-glx-260     
nvidia-glx-260:
  Installed: 260.19.29-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 260.19.29-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 260.19.29-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://deb.linuxmce.org/ubuntu/ lucid/beta2 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status


[l3mce]

I made a typo. Please:
apt-cache policy pluto-nvidia-video-drivers
and dump that here from the MAG.

The MAG should be working great... that PCI ID should work just fine on 260, which it is on.

The upgrades give the ID41 a better shot at firing audio and video... but I really just need to get one of these things. I can throw 50 different configs in here but it is a waste of everybodies time. I would probably wait for the next snapshot which will probably produce today, and try it.

[tompin2]

Hi L3mce,

I guess I got the info too late  , I guess I fix it the hard way, since I had nothing to do last night until 1 am for the next feeding of my son (2 weeks old) I decided to make a drastic test, just like the zbox

Code: [Select]

sudo apt-get --purge remove nvidia-*
KBOOM! nvidia!
Then,

Code: [Select]

sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-295.53.run
Reboot, after it, avwizard was displayed, follow it without any problems and voila!.  Did the same with the zbox and both are working perfectly (video issues,  alpha and opengl tricks etc), the audio @ the zbox will try it later.

I tried the zsync without success, it dumped an error (did not record it, sorry) and started downloading the entire image again.!  That is when I decided to wipe nvidia stuff and start from scratch!.  I hope this helps other.  I´m willing to do more test if you want in order to help as much as possible for MAG AND zboxes for future users and snapshots.

Cheers,

T

[l3mce]

apt-cache policy nvidia-glx-260

My installer is pretty damned stubborn.

[DragonK]

These id41s are going to be the death of me. I need to just buy one.

L3mce,

Am I seeing it wrong, but the ID41's are Intel driven and not Nvidia???

From
http://www.zotac.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_images-SRW.tpl&product_id=335&category_id=171&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=100295&lang=en

Code: [Select]

Model
    Model ZBOX ID41
Chipset
    Manufacturer Intel®
    Chipset NM10 Express
    GPU Next-Generation NVIDIA ION™ w/512MB DDR3
Karel

[bushtech]

Iḿ also trying to figure this out

/proc/asound/cards shows 2 cards : Card 0 Intel
                                                     Card 1 Nvidia    

[RayBe]

this reminds me of something:
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Dual_Sound_Cards
hope this helps.

br,
Raymond

EDIT: typo

[tompin2]

Dear Followers of this post.  I'm making a step by step guide to get the sound working.  With some information from the web and help with LMCE gurus, I will try to do a for dummy's guide (like me ).  This guide will solve sound issues and video hopefully.  On the next reply.

Cheers,

T

[tompin2]

Hello,

I guess someone went ahead of me because the problem is fixed.  After doing (today) apt-get upgrade at the core and image rebuild of the zotac mag.  Video issues are corrected!

Greate Job!!!!  Was it you L3mce?

For the  hdmi sound I guess it is better to start a new post so people is not confused or lost by this post subject but in a few words I can mention what I did.

1. Figure out which port was for HDMI sound.  Check xorg log to understand hdmi "monitor" capabilities, in my case for for the MAG was no issue, for the ZBOX it was because I have a DENON receiver so the nvidia driver did not detected HDMI audio capabilities on him.
In my case device 7 was the one used for hdmi audio, like L3mce mentioned.  I modified the asound template under user pluto and that was it.  Of course that before that I did some testing to make sure that device 7 was the one.
I erased the line "options snd-hda-intel model=auto " at the modprobe/alsa-base.conf because it was causing problems with the asound.conf file.  Disabled the Intel audio board at the bios so only the NVIDIA HDA was seen.  Also for the zotac ZBOX I needed to update the alsa drivers because it was not recognize at the begining.  If anyone have any questions I will try to do my best to share my little knowledge

Ill try to post (if necesary) a new post with detailed step by step.
 

Cheers,

T