[PlanetCCRMA] HDSP solution [see: workaround, temporary...]

[derek holzer]

hi gang,

after goofing around with ACPI settings, BIOS IRQ settings and various 
versions of the firmware for my malfunctioning cardbus HDSP, i resorted 
to pure hardware voodoo: rebooting/restarting with various combinations 
of devices attached, reinserted, reset or repowered. what i arrived at 
to get my HDSP working about 80% of the time is this:

1) card does not seem to work after a reboot, so complete power down and 
restart is necessary

2) card must be inserted into PCMCIA slot after computer powers up, but 
before boot. i do this during the grub screen...

3) boot from this kernel + options in grub [important part is the 
pci=noacpi]:

title PlanetCCRMA PCI=NOACPI (2.4.22-6.ll.rh90)
         root (hd0,1)
         kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.22-6.ll.rh90 ro root=LABEL=/ pci=noacpi
         initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.22-6.ll.rh90.img

this puts my #2 cardbus slot, and subsequently my HDSP, on IRQ 9, along 
with usb-uhci, ohci1394 and eth0. crowded house, to say the least, but 
the best i can do. i am a bit worried about using the HDSP to record to 
my firewire drive, for example, because there might not be enough 
throughput, or the interrupts might get in the way. probably good at 
this point to adjust the IRQ priorities...

also of note is that there appear to be differences when i power down 
the card before i restart or not. most often, the card loads sucessfully 
if i do NOT power it down along with the computer. see what i mean about 
voodoo?

if i do not do these three things, my chances of the HDSP card loading 
successfully get very small. using the full ACPI, with its PCI 
arrangements, puts the card on IRQ10 in my current setup, along with my 
Radeon video card. attempting to use just about any audio app at that 
point results in total system freeze.

if anybody has some light to shed on this mysterious situation, i am all 
ears.

best,
derek