Precision M65 Laptop - Audio Subsystem

 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
         Subsystem: Dell Device 01c8
         Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21
         Memory at efffc000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
         Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
         Capabilities: [60] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-
         Capabilities: [70] Express Root Complex Integrated Endpoint, MSI 00
         Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel <?>
         Capabilities: [130] Root Complex Link <?>
         Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
         Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

Not much to say here, I'm afraid. It works. The Dell Precision M65 comes with integrated Intel HD Audio - . Bells & whistles you can have, but it don't come with knobs on. You get stereo from the built in speakers. Quality is OK, though nothing to shout about. At some point I will do a frequency response test, as well as looking at some external speakers. Audio out connections: a 2.5mm jack socket. If you purchase the docking station you get S/PDIF - but sadly it is a wired connection, not optical. I have not tested this yet. Also, having had the laptop some months now, I can moan about the placing of the inbuilt speakers - they have been placed at fingertip level, central to the Caps-Lock and Return keys. The grills are now filled with crud. Not nice!

Media Keys

Additional buttons on this laptop are few. Next to the keyboard, there are three additional keys, with logo's for Increase Volume, Decrease Volume, and Mute. No attempt has been made yet to get these working. Results will be posted when I have got them working (which I haven't attempted yet). Suggestions welcome.

ALSA configuration

Standard in-kernel drivers were used, rather than bleeding edge ALSA drivers. This resulted in strange logfile entries whilst using kernel 2.6.21. But the sound works, so at the moment I am not too bothered about them...

ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_intel.c:1124: azx_pcm_prepare: bufsize=0x10000, fragsize=0x1000, format=0x11 ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:620: hda_codec_setup_stream: NID=0x2, stream=0x5, channel=0, format=0x11 ALSA sound/core/control.c:660: BUG? (info->access == 0)

 [<f88c43e9>] snd_ctl_ioctl+0x3ff/0x920 [snd]
 [<c0168e35>] __link_path_walk+0xbdd/0xd16
 [<c015ae68>] nameidata_to_filp+0x19/0x28
 [<c015aea2>] do_filp_open+0x2b/0x31
 [<f88c3fea>] snd_ctl_ioctl+0x0/0x920 [snd]
 [<c016addc>] do_ioctl+0x1c/0x5d
 [<c016b062>] vfs_ioctl+0x245/0x257
 [<c016b0bc>] sys_ioctl+0x48/0x60
 [<c0102c39>] sysenter_past_esp+0x56/0x79

Update: I am now using ALSA 1.0.14_rc3, and get no syslog messages any more :-)

Sound Server

I have ended up using PulseAudio(approve sites). For my reasons for doing so, see the Pulse Audio Presentation(approve sites), though it is annoying that there are still some applications which will not work. The daemon will suck about 6% of the CPU capacity.

    * /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
    * /etc/pulse/default.pa
    * /etc/pulse/client.conf

OSS configuration

Whilst playing around with the hardware, I gave OSS a chance. As far as installation was concerned, it was amongst the easiest hardware configuration I have done - download OSS, install, run. That's it. However, as it is closed source, the Linux kernel complains (rightly so, IMHO), and soon loading it may not even be an option - this will limit you to old kernel versions in future. However, if you are happy with a stable old kernel, OSS may be an option for you.

Connectivity

The headphone jackplug on the docking station does not work (under linux?). I have not tested the S/PDIF connection.