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Sound slow, distorted and crackling when running Snow Leopard.


theconnactic
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Hi, folks!

 

Recently i decided to adventure myself in the realm of OX86 pcs. Reading here and there and starting from scratch, i learned really a lot of things this weekend. Distros, virtualisation, ketxs, terminal etc. kept me busy in the last 48 hours.

 

So, i have had some success installing Snow Leopard on vmware player. Managed to alter display resolution to fit the size of my monitor. Internet connection working nicely. Sound... well, here is where trouble begins: looking everywhere i could, still i didn`t find a driver or app that makes it work properly. I tried many, from the core audio driver to ensoniq. In the end, the sound was enabled but slow, distorted and crackling.

 

I tried to fix it myself! Lost my entire sunday in vain on it, but i had to give in and share my pain here. And, with luck, get some help towards a solution or, at least, a hope that there is a solution for it. Please! My hardware is: AMD Athlon 7750 (kuma) 2.7 ghz, 4gb ddr2 ram, MSI motherboard with on-board sound, a realtek high definition audio device.

 

Thanks!

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Sound is produced by two chips…the audio controller and the codec chipset. Finding the audio controller identification is relatively easy. But the codec chipset is best found through Windows. I assume you are running your virtual machine in Windows.

 

Boot Windows. Go to Device Manager. Find Sound. Click the little arrow beside the Sound item. For each item under sound that you find, do the following:

- right-click on it and select Properties

- click on the Details tab

- in the pop-up menu, select Hardware ID's

- give the 4 character hex numbers following the VEN_ and following DEV_

 

Using this info, maybe a better sound solution can be found.

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First of all, thank you very much for the reply!

 

I followed your advice and found the ID VEN 10EC DEV 0888. I`m googling right now to find the right driver based on this ID: no easy task at all! I wonder if i`ll have to uninstall every other drive i installed before, or if i can just install the right driver - if i find it! - and my sound will miraculously come to life, "just like Benny, the dog".

 

Thanks, once more.

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First things first,you cannot change anything by installing a driver 'native' to your motherboard when running a virtual OS.*only* the CPU identity and the controls over it get forwarded from the host to the guest OS,all other hardware is a software emulation of some existing hardware.And not to be forgotten,OSX in virtualization software is a very sketchy subject,as Apple does not like their OS virtualized except on their own hardware..AND,if it is a server version.That being said,go to Utilities,Audio and Midi configuration and check the sample rate set there,if it is the wrong value,sound can be slow/fast/crackle/pop etc.It needs to be set to 44000 Hz.

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Thanks for the reply!

 

Let me summarize what i could understand from your explanation: since i`m running Snow Leopard in a virtual machine, the drivers installed in the guest machine osx doesn`t necessarily have to match the hardware installed in the host. I`m getting it right? If i am, should a look for a "VMware sound driver for mac os" so i can fix the sound of my virtual machine, and is there any?

 

I had already checked the sample rate in the Audio MIDI setup, it's already set to 44.1 kHz (there`s an option to set to 48 kHz and i tried it, but didn't have any perceptible effect). Thanks for the hint anyway!

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Yeah you got me right.I myself haven't really played with virtualizing it under VMWare,but what you quoted up top is exactly what you should be searching,because its an one-for-all driver.I know about

ensoniq etc..but i haven't actually followed those kinds of topics and if anyone got the sound to work reliably.Good luck with getting it to work.

 

Happy hacking

 

EDIT// make sure you using the right kexts.. like these in the post -> http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=195325

 

In the future you might consider running Lion as a guest,since sound works natively when virtualized but yeah,that's another subject.

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Find the wrong ones by the names in the post i gave you in /System/Library/Extensions and drag them to the trash(it will ask you for the admin password),then just install the right ones.The installer will set the correct permissions im guessing and do all that is needed.

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Thank you again!

 

However, i decided to change my approach and installed Snow Leopard in a 2`5`` hard drive i retrieved from an old and broken netbook, and connected this HD to my desktop. Everything worked just fine, and to find the correct drivers was rather easy. I`ll try a Lion VMware guest anyway, sometime in the future.

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