My reason for thinking it's a hardware flaw is not entirely based on gut feelings.ssolie wrote:I disagree with that conclusion.Aslak3 wrote:I've personally come the conclusion that this is a hardware problem, not fixable in software...
The audio driver on the Sam460ex is primarily software and I have seen the effort the developer had to go through to get any sound out of that thing. It is *not* easy by any stretch.
1. People who have owned a SAM460 for a long time seem to have no issues with sound. The latest driver on os4depot.net fixed all their remaining issues.
2. People who have bought a SAM460 in the last six or so months or so all seem to have the same symptoms when running the latest driver (crackles) or the driver before that one (slow sound).
3. Acube offered to fix Everblue's sound problems, after Max could not get a working driver made, with a "hardware fix".
4. Acube's inability to get working sound this long after the problems were reported makes me think that they themselves know it's a hardware problem.
My theory is that some change happened in the SM502 chip which Acube didn't know about. It's the only explanation into why some people's machines work and some do not - all SAM460 are *not* the same. This, to me, is undeniable.
Anyway, if I was a betting man I'd put money on the SAM460 in my machine never having working sound out of the SM502. It is slightly gawling that Acube/AmigaKit/etc are selling SAM460s without working sound. It is pretty much impossible to recommend anyone buy a SAM460 for this reason. The fact that the driver is hard to write doesn't really matter. They should be selling the machines with a working sound cad, or say it does not have useable sound output.
None of this would matter a great deal if a PCI or PCI-E card can be found that works. I've taken out the PCI SATA card from my SAM460 and would probably have working sound now if the SAM460's PCI slot took 5V cards as I have an unused SB 128 (5V only) in my parts drawer.