Description of Problem: Sound doesn't work on Intel (original) motherboards with in-built ICH4 audio. The following error message comes on using modprobe with the i810_audio driver (which is what is supposed to be used): Primary codec not ready On using sndconfig, the error is "init_module failed" Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): kernel version 2.4.18-17 (which is the latest update) How Reproducible: This happens always and on all systems with the above-mentioned hardware. Steps to Reproduce: 1. not applicalble 2. 3. Actual Results: The module should have got inserted without any errors and sound should have worked correctly. Expected Results: sound doesn't work Additional Information: I have fixed this bug by placing a very small hack in the i810_audio.c which is the kernel sound driver. The hack is ugly but it makes sound work perfectly once the kernel/modules are recompiled. This also worked perfectly for other people who had the same hardware and they were able to get audio perfectly !!
I beleive this bug is related to bug 76830 .
The problem can be fixed the following way by adding a small hack to the driver source code. Go to /usr/src/`uname -a`/drivers/sound/i810_audio.c and add "return 1" at the beginning of the function i810_ac97_exists() so that it always returns 1. Recompile the modules and install them. Sound would work now !!!. This is definitely a bug in the i810_audio.c file of this kernel version which needs to be fixed by the maintainer/developer.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 76830 ***