Very Strange Audio Fault

[Duddyroar]

I fired up my GP2X F200 last night for a bit of gaming action. I loaded PicoDrive and started a game, only to find that there was no sound whatsoever. I instantly assumed I'd messed around with the PicoDrive settings but when I checked them the sound was set to ON. I switched the machine off and back on and got the usual GP2X startup sound. However, upon going into PicoDrive again there was still no sound.

I then deciced to fire up PocketSnes to see if the problem was with PicoDrive - still no sound. I tried the NES emulator and that was the same. By this point I was getting a little worried, but every time I turned the machine off and on, I'd still get the startup sound!

I took the battery cover off and moved the batteries around, and then, as if by magic, everything was fine!

Anyone else encountered this? Because the startup sound continued to function I'm guessing it's a software issue rather than a hardware one (like a loose connection inside the machine or something). Could the batteries be the problem?

 

[virusx]

I think the sound chip has changed since the F200.
Try to change the sound settings of your app to 22050Hz.

 

[Duddyroar]

Ah, I probably should have mentioned - sound has been 100% fine up until this fault happened.

 

[virusx]

Strange !
If you have your startup sound everytime you boot, It must be a software related issue.
But why is it happening now? Have you changed something?
Do you have some apps that still play sound?

 

[Duddyroar]

Well everything is working fine now, like I said I checked three different emulators when the fauly occured and none of them played sound. I hadn't changed any settings on the machine or anything.

Now it's working fine again, as if nothing had happened!

 

[virusx]

Did you flash your ears' firmware recently?

 

[Duddyroar]

LOL

I wish I could do that actually...I have conductive hearing loss in one ear, so a firmware upgrade might come in handy.

Just had another blast on the F200 and the sound is fine at the moment. I'll post here if the problem happens again.

 

[Duddyroar]

It's happened again.

This time I tested with several emulators and some of the built in games. No sound on any of them. I tinkered around with the settings on PicoDrive (dropped the sound down to 22050Hz) but it made no difference. Eventually the sound came back on again after I'd turned the machine on and off a few times. Every time I turned it on, the opening sound played perfectly fine, so it HAS to be a software issue.

Could it be related to my SD card, or something?

I have another 2GB card so I'll try switching them over and see if that solves it. Grrrrrr!

 

[notaz]

It's happened again.

This time I tested with several emulators and some of the built in games. No sound on any of them. I tinkered around with the settings on PicoDrive (dropped the sound down to 22050Hz) but it made no difference. Eventually the sound came back on again after I'd turned the machine on and off a few times. Every time I turned it on, the opening sound played perfectly fine, so it HAS to be a software issue.

Could it be related to my SD card, or something?

I doubt it's related to SD card. Which version of PD are you using? I remember once during development Pico started killing sound like you describe (I suppose it was breaking down the sound driver somehow), but then the problem just fixed itself strangely.

The startup sound always works because it's done by the bootloader code, not Linux driver, which seems to go down in your case.

 

[Duddyroar]

I'm using the latest version of PD.

It would make sense what you say because whenever this has happened, it's always after I've loaded PD. So it must be doing something...

Thanks for the help! Hopefully a new version of PD can solve this?

 

[notaz]

Hopefully a new version of PD can solve this?

It could if I ever reproduced this. It never happens for me now.