Sound Card Problem

I've just installed suse 10.3 and i can't seem to get the sound card working properly. I have a Realteck AC'97 ALC655. When i enable 6ch output i get sound from 4 satelites but not from the center one. The subwoofer also is not as loud as it used to. Anyone can help?
Thx.

any help anyone?:-s please...:-s

I've just installed suse 10.3 and i can't seem to get the sound card working properly. I have a Realteck AC'97 ALC655. When i enable 6ch output i get sound from 4 satelites but not from the center one. The subwoofer also is not as loud as it used to.[/b]

Nice! Wish I had that hardware. .... maybe at Christmas, if I promise the wife something in return ..... hmm ...

... anyway, that statement of mine is basically a qualification lead in, to caution you, that my advice may not be so good, as I don't have any experience in this. But since no one else has chimed in to help, let me pass the very little bit that I know. Maybe that very small amount will help set you on a path to solve this.

Searching on the ALC655, suggests to me that with suse-10.3, your alsa version 1.0.14 should as good as you are going to get (for now). I think updating to 1.0.16 will NOT help, so stick with 1.0.14.
http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php...lc655&go=Go

Now to get 6ch output, I think you need to create a .asoundrc file, and place it in your /home/Doomknight directory. Take a look here:
http://home.cfl.rr.com/infofiles/asoundrc.examples.html
that page was created by user "gnubien" who can be contacted on the IRC freenode chat channel #alsa.

Take a look there, and maybe try out some of the example files, to see if they work for you.

After creating a .asoundrc file, you should restart alsa with something like (from an xterm/konsole with root pemissions):
<span style="font-family:Courier New">rcalsasound restart</span>

Good luck, and apologies I can't help more, but thats pretty much the limit of my experience in this particular area of multimedia sound.

Don't worry mate, any help is greatly appreciated.

Nice! Wish I had that hardware. .... maybe at Christmas, if I promise the wife something in return ..... hmm ...[/b]

You serious? it's an onboard soundcard...AC'97 is outdated. However if you'll give her your credit card for a day i think she would be ok with you getting a new sound card))
Well, i did what u suggested and i got the asoundrc file that said surround 51 default, but after i restarted alsa, amarok gave me "xine was unable to initialize any audio drivers" which was very weird, cause kde had sound, and it's alsa as default. I selcted automatic detection of the sound driver in amarok, and i got sound again, but still the same problem...the center speaker won't work...I'm thinking that it might be something with my hardware, maybe it's not supported. Irony of fate...i also have a cmedia-8738 pci sound card, which works great with alsa, and i do have 5.1 with that, however vista won't give me 5.1...still dual booting, so switching from one sound card to another, each time i started a different os, would be a major pain in the a**...do you think i should select a different asoundrc? though i can't see what other i should...

... i got the asoundrc file that said surround 51 default,... snipped ...do you think i should select a different asoundrc? though i can't see what other i should...
[/b]

For 5.1, this is the .asoundrc file I recommend you create and try:

surround51.as.default
# surround51.as.default begins ###
pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm "surround51"
}
# surround51.as.default ends ###

Is that the file you tried?

If that doesn't work,then try surfing with google, searching on "asoundrc 5.1". You will get many hits, such as:

ALSA Multi-channel Audio mini-HOWTO
http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~bondhugu/alsamch.shtml

or pages with guidance for other distributions, such as Ubuntu:
http://ubuntulinuxhelp.com/the-simple-way-...king-in-ubuntu/
where this .asoundrc was suggested instead:

pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm “surround51″
slave.channels 6
route_policy duplicate
}

ie its very similar, BUT it added two extra lines on the end.

or there is this page from the alsa site that gives yet even another .asoundrc example:
http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php/Playing_...tup_%28Howto%29

All I can recommend is trial and error, and please if you succeed, provide detailed guidance as to what worked for you.

Good luck.

Trying right now...i'll let you know i'll do...yup that's the example i used...

Well, tried most of them, but non seem to work...now my amarok isn't loading at all...i think a reboot will do the trick...i think i'm going to get a new soundcard when i'll have the money... wanted to do that for some time now...
Well, thx for your help oldcpu ...

Well, tried most of them, but non seem to work...[/b]

This site (below) looks pretty good to me. Did you try all their examples? (being careful to restart alsa after each attempt)?
http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php/Playing_...tup_%28Howto%29

Don't forget also to read the wiki:
http://alsa.opensrc.org/SurroundSound

Yup...tried them all allright, and restarted alsa each time...it's still not working...well, i'll just have to stick to this until i get a new soundcard...however while i was searching i found some asoundrc files that most users confirmed to work(not for me though)...here they are:

pcm.dmixs51 {
****type dmix
****ipc_key 1024
****slave {
********pcm "hw:0,1"
********rate 48000
********channels 6
********period_time 0
********period_size 1024
********buffer_time 0
********buffer_size 4096
** }
}
pcm.duplicate {
****type plug
****slave.pcm "dmixs51"
****slave.channels 6
****route_policy duplicate
}

or:

# move channel 0 to channel 2
pcm.move0to2 {
**** type route
**** slave.pcm 3to6
**** slave.channels 3
**** ttable.0.2 1
}
# 3to6 has 3 input and 6 output channels
# the stereo signal is on ch. 0 and 1
# ch.0 is copied to 0 and 2**(front and rear)
# ch.1 is copied to 1 and 3**(front and rear)
# ch.0 and ch.1 will is mixed to ch.4 (center)
# ch.2 is routed to ch.5 (subwoofer)
pcm.3to6 {
**** type route
**** slave.pcm "surround51"
**** slave.channels 6
**** ttable.0.0 1
**** ttable.1.1 1
**** ttable.0.2 1
**** ttable.1.3 1
**** ttable.0.4 0.5
**** ttable.1.4 0.5
**** ttable.2.5 1
}

Oh, when u restart alsa, make sure you close any sound application that might be running...

Thx for your help oldcpu I really appreciate your desire to help
Edit (oldcpu) - made format more legible - hopefully I have it correct

This is weird though...It appears alsa is forcing sound through the rear speakers even if the file is stereo, while with the center one, it plays it accordingly...

How about this:
http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~bondhugu/alsamch.shtml
...not sure if the below is two separate .asoundrc files (one for 5.1 and one for 4.1) ? You will need to experiment.

# for 5.1 speakers
pcm.ch51dup {
******** slave.pcm surround51
******** slave.channels 6
******** type route
******** ttable.0.0 1
******** ttable.1.1 1
******** ttable.0.2 1
******** ttable.1.3 1
******** ttable.0.4 0.5
******** ttable.1.4 0.5
******** ttable.0.5 0.5
******** ttable.1.5 0.5
}

# for 4.1 speakers
pcm.ch41dup {
******** type route
******** slave.pcm surround41
******** slave.channels 5
******** ttable.0.0 1
******** ttable.1.1 1
******** ttable.0.2 1
******** ttable.1.3 1
******** ttable.0.4 0.5
******** ttable.1.4 0.5
}

A possible speaker test:
<span style="font-family:Courier New">speaker-test -c 6 -D surround51</span>

Again, this is all speculative suggestions on my part. ... I don't have the hardware, and do not understand the content of the proposed .asoundrc files ...

Good luck.