11.4 strange audio problem with speakers

English Multimedia
#1

Hi, I installed 11.4 x86_64 and I have been very well impressed at how
snappy it feels. The unfortunate thing is that in a vaio laptop VGN-AR21S I
cannot make the sound work properly. I installed 11.4 twice, in case
something had gone wrong, but it is the same story: no sound through the
speakers.

After uninstalling pulseaudio and disabling pulseaudio support in yast I can
get a device listed:

~> aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: STAC92xx Analog [STAC92xx Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: STAC92xx Digital [STAC92xx Digital]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Surprisingly, the speaker test is completely silent through the built in
speakers, but I can hear the sound with the headphones.

speaker-test -c2 -l5 -twav

~> speaker-test 1.0.24.2

Playback device is default
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
WAV file(s)
Rate set to 48000Hz (requested 48000Hz)
Buffer size range from 2048 to 8192
Period size range from 1024 to 1024
Using max buffer size 8192
Periods = 4
was set period_size = 1024
was set buffer_size = 8192
0 - Front Left
1 - Front Right
Time per period = 2.857441
0 - Front Left
1 - Front Right
Time per period = 3.008117
0 - Front Left
1 - Front Right
Time per period = 3.008088
0 - Front Left
1 - Front Right
Time per period = 3.008029
0 - Front Left
1 - Front Right
Time per period = 3.007967

I can’t find any “muted” toggles. The volume sliders in Yast are all at the
maximum.
I can mute on and off the headphones via the mixer or with a hardware
switch, but I can’t set the built-in speakers to produce any sound.
Amarok also works, but only through the headphones.
Tried alsamixer and gamix but it makes no difference, the speakers do not
work. The strange thing is that sound used to work OK under 11.3 and works
OK under Windows [but I want to use 11.4 :slight_smile: ]

I have run out of ideas… can somebody suggest what could I try next?

Many thanks

-G-

#2

I wrote:
> Hi, I installed 11.4 x86_64 and I have been very well impressed at how
> snappy it feels. The unfortunate thing is that in a vaio laptop VGN-AR21S
> I cannot make the sound work properly. I installed 11.4 twice, in case
> something had gone wrong, but it is the same story: no sound through the
> speakers.

Just in case this is useful to anybody else having this problem, this is how
I resolved it:

In yast, there is a setting for the “model name” of the audio board, and
looking around in the net I found that there is large list of boards,
amongst them a “vaio” model(!), which I tried and solved the issue.

-G-

#3

I have a Toshiba A665 and this problem started with me as well. I’m not sure exactly when, I usually have external speakers plugged up to my laptop (it’s my main and only computer). My headphone jack is the only way I can get sound, yet in Windows7 my onboard speakers work fine.

Any ideas? Sound is working, but is there some secret-squirrel mixer setting I need? :wink:

Thanks in advance!