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ESS Solo1E DOS audio mixer?

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First post, by adalbert

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Does anyone know about dedicated mixer software working under MS-DOS for ES1946s Solo-1 sound card? I have that card in my Presario 1800 notebook, and the issue is that PC-speaker beep is so loud that my ears are bleeding (that laptop has big and loud JBL speakers).
Of course it has built in buttons for volume control, but it looks like that PC-speaker beeps are going through different output (Solo-1 has dedicated pin for PC-speaker) and are hardwired to the speakers. I can lower the volume to acceptable level by using Windows 98 volume mixer, it is possible to set PC-speaker volume, but I alsoo boot into MS-DOS and Win 3.1 and there I have no control over PC-speaker. I can modify the volume with volume buttons or utilities like SBPVOL.com, but there is no option to set PC-speaker volume.

I looked into the datasheet and there are listed registers responsible for setting the PC speaker volume.
I have no knowledge about programming in assembly language, but I guess that it should be possible to lower that beep volume by writing a small program just setting one register in memory. So, the best option would be to find appropriate mixer software, but if nobody has it, does anyone know should such simple assembly script look like, or how should i use MS-DOS debug.exe in order to check the value of such register and modify it?

And the last option would be to cut a trace leading from PCSPKO to the speakers and solder a resistor, but I would like to avoid such modifications. And I would have to disassemble entire laptop again and I don't like doing this; unfortunately the sound chip is on the bottom side of mainboard 😜

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Repair/electronic stuff videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/adalbertfix
ISA Wi-fi + USB in T3200SXC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX30t3lYezs
GUI programming for Windows 3.11 (the easy way): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6L272OApVg

Reply 2 of 8, by adalbert

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Here it is:

http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/alsa/manua … ess/DS_1946.PDF

Repair/electronic stuff videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/adalbertfix
ISA Wi-fi + USB in T3200SXC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX30t3lYezs
GUI programming for Windows 3.11 (the easy way): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6L272OApVg

Reply 3 of 8, by h-a-l-9000

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Say your soundblaster port is 220h.
- write 3Ch to 224h.
- write 00(loudest)-07h to 225h.

in debug:
o224 3c
o225 07

Worth a try 😀
But I'm afraid whenever a game resets the mixer this change is gone.

1+1=10

Reply 4 of 8, by adalbert

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Great , it works! 😁
And actually 00 is mute and 01 is most quiet (not so quiet, but A LOT better), 07 is normal (max). That setting seems to be active after restarting a game, and even after rebooting the laptop! So I will just put that into autoexec and it will solve the problem.
Thanks for help, now I can understand those commands better 😉

Here is video I made. You can listen to normal and more quiet beep... with blending machine running in the background. You can see that unexpected beep could cause a heart attack 😜

https://vid.me/i6Xg

The speakers are connected by easily accessible, detachable cable so maybe I will try adding 4 or 8 ohm resistors and everything will be quieter, it will lower max volume but that's not a problem because they are too loud anyway.

Repair/electronic stuff videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/adalbertfix
ISA Wi-fi + USB in T3200SXC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX30t3lYezs
GUI programming for Windows 3.11 (the easy way): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6L272OApVg

Reply 5 of 8, by dr.zeissler

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That leads me to a question the other way round...

My Compaq 1685 seems to have an ess-solo1. I installed the drivers and the soundcard is recognized.
But there is no working mixer in dos or win3x for that machine. I simply can hear nothing beside the pc-speaker.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 7 of 8, by dr.zeissler

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essvol.exe does work with pci-solo1 but not with that onboard ess-solo of the compaq 1685.. 🙁
driver ist installed in win3x but no mixer too...seems to be a special solo1 on that compaq board...

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 8 of 8, by oskarzer0

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adalbert wrote on 2016-04-19, 19:04:
Great , it works! :D And actually 00 is mute and 01 is most quiet (not so quiet, but A LOT better), 07 is normal (max). That set […]
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Great , it works! 😁
And actually 00 is mute and 01 is most quiet (not so quiet, but A LOT better), 07 is normal (max). That setting seems to be active after restarting a game, and even after rebooting the laptop! So I will just put that into autoexec and it will solve the problem.
Thanks for help, now I can understand those commands better 😉

Here is video I made. You can listen to normal and more quiet beep... with blending machine running in the background. You can see that unexpected beep could cause a heart attack 😜

https://vid.me/i6Xg

The speakers are connected by easily accessible, detachable cable so maybe I will try adding 4 or 8 ohm resistors and everything will be quieter, it will lower max volume but that's not a problem because they are too loud anyway.

how did you do it, please?
I run debug.exe and write:
-e 0224 3c
-e 0225 01
-q

But it does not work. The volume is very loud 🙁

Thanks!

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