Topic: HDSP PCI version (digiface, multiface, RPM)

It is my intention to fully document the procedure for these combinations here as much as to ask questions as a number of things have changed since the newest howto I have found.  The end result will, hopefully, be of use to others.  Perhaps even serve as a springboard for a new howto.

I've been working on this since late August when I purchased a (used) HDSP and digiface combination.  I have read (and tried) multiple howto's, including the well written one in Linux Journal.  All to no avail.  The end result remains the same:

cat /proc/asound/cards
--- no soundcards ---

lspci | grep audio
0a:00.0 Multimedia audio controller: Xilinx Corporation RME Hammerfall DSP

lshw produces tons of output, the relevant snip:
        *-pci:5
             description: PCI bridge
             product: 82801 PCI Bridge
             vendor: Intel Corporation
             physical id: 1e
             bus info: pci@0000:00:1e.0
             version: a5
             width: 32 bits
             clock: 33MHz
             capabilities: pci subtractive_decode bus_master cap_list
             resources: memory:b1900000-b19fffff
           *-multimedia UNCLAIMED
                description: Multimedia audio controller
                product: RME Hammerfall DSP
                vendor: Xilinx Corporation
                physical id: 0
                bus info: pci@0000:0a:00.0
                version: 00
                width: 32 bits
                clock: 33MHz
                capabilities: bus_master
                configuration: latency=255
                resources: memory:b1900000-b190ffff

In any troubleshooting procedure, it seems to me that the first step is to determine if the hardware is, in fact, working.  To that end, I ask my first question:  is there any self-test for the hardware itself?  Is there any other way to determine if the hardware is working that is not OS dependent?

Re: HDSP PCI version (digiface, multiface, RPM)

Hello.

The error light is on when there is an error. This includes when the firmware hasn't loaded. You aren't saying where you are at. You need the snd-hdsp module loaded--lsmod.

You need the firmware package this loaded at startup. This is essentially when the error light goes out. Often the firmware package often can't find the firmware, so if the package is there but not loading the firmware then you can sometimes need to fix it. That can be a difficult thing to track down through the logs.

Also, the other tricky thing if the firmware is loaded and working is until the hdspmixer program is up and running all inputs and outputs are muted. These are the most obvious tricky bits I can think of off the top if my head

Hth

GNU/Linux