Status of VIA Envy24 audio controller

Mon Jul 17 09:01:11 UTC 2006

i think that i manage to reverse the AV710 board design, using digital
multimeter i found out that:

WM8728 pin 19 (SCK) is wired to Envy24HT-S pin 71 (SCLK)
WM8728 pin 18 (SDIDEM) is wired to Envy24HT-S pin 70 (SDA)

Envy24 pin 70 & pin 71 are "I2C port", so looks like WM8728 2-wire control
mode is used and it is actually I2C compatible, but i don't know why Wolfson
doesn't mention in WM8728 datasheet, that 2-wire control mode is I2C
compatible and provide more info, maybe because I2C is registered trademark
of Philips.

so i will write code to control the WM8728 via I2C and see if it will work
...

On 7/17/06, Konstantin Dimitrov <kosio.dimitrov at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> not only developers are important, for example, the first step of adding
> support for specific Envy24-based card is to know how I2S codec control
> interface pins are wired to Envy24 GPIO pins and it is not typical
> developer's job - reversing the wiring between I2S codec and Envy24 chip
> using only digital multimeter.
> with AV710 i'm stuck on this stage, but AV710 like SE-90PCI uses VIA
> reference design, so VIA can help and provide, not only datasheets for all
> Envy24 chips, but also some information about their reference design, but if
> they are willing to do that, they probably will provide open-source drivers
> for the cards with reference design, so the only option left is using
> digital multimeter on our Envy24-based cards and try to reverse the wiring
> (same apply for boards, that don't use VIA reference design).
>
>
> On 7/16/06, Laurent Courty <lrntct at gmail.com > wrote:
> >
> > Le dimanche 16 juillet 2006 19:11, vous avez écrit:
> > > On 7/16/06, Laurent Courty < lrntct at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Hello,
> > > >
> > > > It's great to see people working on envy24 support. Thanks a lot
> > hackers
> > > > ! I'm thinking about buying an Onkyo SE-90PCI board.
> > > > Do you think if it's possible to make it work on FreeBSD ? It seem
> > to use
> > > > the
> > > > VT1720T (Envy24MT). As I see on Nikolas' web site, no datasheet is
> > > > currently
> > > > available for this chip. How can I help ? Should I ask VIA for
> > datasheet
> > > > ?
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > >
> > > > Laurent
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > freebsd-multimedia at freebsd.org mailing list
> > > > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-multimedia
> > > > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "
> > > > freebsd-multimedia-unsubscribe at freebsd.org"
> > >
> > > nothing is impossible, but ...
> > > looks like it is time to discuss VIA reference design, because both
> > > Chaintech AV710 (there are many similar versions of that board from
> > other
> > > manufacturer like OOAOO SQ710II) and Onkyo SE-90PCI seems to use
> > reference
> > > design.
> > > according to that picture:
> > >
> > > http://xkodi.svobodno.com/xkodi/se90pci_3.jpg
> > >
> > > SE-90PCI uses VT1720T + WM8716 + 49.152 MHz crystal on VT1720T XIN2
> > pin.
> > > i made list of VIA reference design with their corresponding EEPROM
> > > content:
> > >
> > >
> > http://xkodi.svobodno.com/envy24/envy24_ref_e2proms/envy24_ref_e2proms.html
> > >
> > > first revision of Chaintech AV710 uses Envy24PT (VT1720PT) and later
> > > revision uses Envy24HT-S (VT1721) and that is possible, because all
> > > Envy24GT/PT/MT/HT-S are subset of Envy24HT in term of features (and
> > pins),
> > > so SE-90PCI is number 5 in the list, Chaintech AV710 is number 7.
> > >
> > > datasheet are available only for Envy24PT and Envy24HT (and Envy24 but
> > it
> > > is very different chip) and comparing them it is possible to guess
> > (but we
> > > can't be sure) for example how Envy24HT-S works, but Envy24MT has
> > different
> > > package, so maybe very different pin assignment and it is very
> > unlikely VIA
> > > to provide datasheets, because i have already asked them, when i buy
> > my
> > > first Envy24-based card.
> > >
> > > two days ago accidentally i found Chaintech AV710 and bought it,
> > because it
> > > is very cheap - 10 times cheaper than my Terratec DMX 6fire, as i said
> > it
> > > is number 7 in the list of VIA reference design, so it uses VT1721 +
> > VT1616
> > > + WM8728 + 24.576 MHz crystal on XIN2 pin.
> > > VT1616 is AC97 codec, but WM8728 is I2S codec very similar to WM8716
> > used
> > > in SE-90PCI.
> > >
> > > i'm trying to find out how the board works with WM8728, because WM8728
> > has
> > > 3 control modes:
> > > 1. hardware
> > > 2. software:
> > > 2.1. 3-wire SPI-compatible
> > > 2.2 . 2-wire
> > >
> > > also i'm assuming that pin assignment of Envy24HT-S is same as
> > Envy24PT
> > > (there is no datasheet available for Envy24HT-S) and i'm very puzzled,
> > > because till now i can't find the LATI2S pin of WM8728 to be wired to
> > any
> > > of VT1721 GPIO pins, so it can't be in SPI mode and i'm starting to
> > think
> > > it is in hardware or 2-wire mode, but i'm not sure. also i can't
> > understand
> > > from WM8728 datasheet how 2-wire mode works. all other Envy24-based
> > boards,
> > > that have support till now under FreeBSD use SPI mode.
> > >
> > > WM8716 has 2 control modes:
> > > 1. hardware
> > > 2. 3-wire SPI-compatible
> > >
> > > both cards uses same VIA (very buggy) driver under Windows, both
> > codecs
> > > have hardware mode, so maybe it makes sense that hardware mode is used
> > and
> > > that the codec is initialized in hardware, because then no specific
> > driver
> > > code is required.
> > >
> > > on AV710 board DIN pin of WM8728 is wired to Envy24HT-S PSDOUT[1] pin,
> > so
> > > according to Envy24PT datasheet, "biDirectional PCI Stereo Pairs DMA
> > > Playback" is used instead of "Multi-Channel Interleaved DMA Playback".
> > > currently we have code only for "Multi-Channel Interleaved DMA
> > Playback"
> > > and at the moment i'm not sure how hard or how easy is "biDirectional
> > PCI
> > > Stereo Pairs DMA Playback" support to be added.
> > >
> > > i'm expecting SE-90PCI to have same design - DIN pin of WM8716 to be
> > wired
> > > to Envy24MT PSDOUT[1] pin.
> > >
> > > so for Chaintech AV710 and SE-90PCI a lot of new code is reqiured and
> > also
> > > to find out how WM8728/WM8716 are controlled, not to mention Envy24MT
> > pin
> > > assignment.
> > >
> > > i'm not aware of someone except me currently trying to do something
> > about
> > > Envy24 support under FreeBSD and my main interest is to add support
> > for my
> > > two Terratec cards - "DMX 6fire" and "Aureon Space". i have already
> > add
> > > support for "DMX 6fire" and it is running using the patched version of
> > > Katsurajima Naoto's code for Envy24+AK452x.
> > >
> > > i also have added support for Envy24HT+WM8770:
> > >
> > >
> > http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-multimedia/2006-June/004347.html
> > >
> > > so my "Aureon Space" is also running, but the code is very messy, so i
> > need
> > > to refine it and also i'm planning to add support for Audiotrak
> > Prodigy
> > > 7.1, because it is very similar to "Aureon Space".
> > >
> > > it would be great if someone want to help with something, because
> > current
> > > code has some problems, there are very huge numbers of different
> > > Envy24-based boards and making full Envy24 support under FreeBSD is
> > very
> > > huge task, so any help is appreciated.
> >
> > Thanks for your answer.
> > I was thinking VIA was more "FLOSS friendly". But if I understand well,
> > developers are more importants than datasheet here. Unfortunately I
> > haven't
> > any programming skills. So I can help in a very limited manner.
> >
> > Laurent
> >
>
>