Sound on Compaq Presario 2500

[Charles Owens]

Howdy,

I'm having trouble getting sound to work with FreeBSD 4.8 on a Compaq 
Presario 2500 (specifically a 2529CL).  Has anyone had any luck with 
this laptop?

According to the service manual both audio and modem functions are 
handled by this chip:  Conexant Smart AMC CX20468-21.  A number of other 
HP/Compaq laptops use this same chip as well (**I've appended a list 
below). 

The fact that audio is handled by the same chip as the (win) modem 
doesn't bode well.  In hopes that this chip's audio functions somehow 
(independent of the modem functionality) emulate Soundblaster hardware 
(or Neomagic, etc) I've tried pretty everything I can think of, including:

    * loading (via /boot/loader.conf):  pcm, sbc, neomagic, ess
    * building a kernel with 'options  PCI_ENABLE_IO_MODES'
    * building a kernel with 'options  PNPBIOS'

All indications are that this is in vain.   Here's some links:

* Product site for Conexant chip --  http://www.conexant.com/products/entry.jsp?id=159
* Company that has linux drivers for some Conexant audio/modem chips --
      http://www.linuxant.com/drivers/

I'm now struggling to cope with the realization that my new (okay... 
refurbished) 2.5Ghz laptop might not be able to play my mp3's  !! (grrrr)

Thanks for any and all help!

Charles


**List of other HP/Compaq latops using the Conexant Smart AMC CX20468-21 
audio/modem chip.  [there may be others... all these models share the 
same service manual.]

HP Pavilion ze5300 Notebook PC
HP Pavilion ze5200 Notebook PC
HP Pavilion ze4300 Notebook PC
HP Pavilion ze4200 Notebook PC
HP Pavilion ze4100 Notebook PC
HP nx9010 Notebook PC
HP nx9005 Notebook PC
HP nx9000 Notebook PC
Compaq Evo Notebook N1050v Series
Compaq Evo Notebook N1010v Series
Compaq Presario 2500 Series Mobile PC
Compaq Presario 2100 Series Mobile PC
Compaq Presario 1100 Series Mobile PC

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Charles N. Owens                                Email: owensc at enc.edu
                                             http://www.enc.edu/~owensc
  Senior Technology Officer
  Information Technology Services              Eastern Nazarene College
-------------------------------------------------------------------------