2 speakers one wont work

English Hardware
1

I had this problem before but it stopped when I replaced the speakers. It started again recently when I was trying to make sure the bluetooth dongle would always turn on at startup. It looks like another person had a similar problem on this forum but I dont know if my settings were exactly the same.

Essentially I have two sets of speakers, one for a secondary monitor, and a default set for the computer. I would like use the default set (the monitor and those speakers go to other devices as well), but the default ones will not play sound anymore. They are on and show up in pavucontrol which says they are playing, but no sound is coming out.

lshw gives
description: Audio device
product: GM206 High Definition Audio Controller
vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
physical id: 0.1
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.1
version: a1
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=snd_hda_intel latency=0
resources: irq:17 memory:ed080000-ed083fff

and
description: Audio device
product: 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family HD Audio Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1f.3
bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.3
version: 31
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=snd_hda_intel latency=32
resources: irq:127 memory:ed340000-ed343fff memory:ed320000-ed32ffff

with the alsa information at http://alsa-project.org/db/?f=5db4e288c0c81066e7f6831f5eeaa0673c35929f

can I ask for some help?

2

I need to understand your system, in order to provide advice.

I note from the script:


!!Soundcards recognised by ALSA
!!-----------------------------

 0 [PCH            ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH
                      HDA Intel PCH at 0xed340000 irq 127
 1 [NVidia         ]: HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia
                      HDA NVidia at 0xed080000 irq 17
 2 [Webcam         ]: USB-Audio - AF FULL HD 1080P Webcam
                      Generic AF FULL HD 1080P Webcam at usb-0000:00:14.0-5, high speed

My assumption is the USB audio, which is a webcam, can be ignored.

that leaves the “PCH” (C230) and the “NVidia” (GM206) ‘sound cards’, both of which are using separate instances of the snd_hda_intel alsa module. (as an aside, sometimes that can cause an issue as the sound devices can inadvertently switch).

Further it looks to me like the NVidia is an HDMI speaker, and the PCH is analogue speaker.

By default, in openSUSE, sound will go to sound card-0, which is the PCH. However it should be possible to force sound via ‘pavucontrol’ to the HDMI (NVidia) in the configuration tab, IF one has made the correct selection there. It puzzles me that this does not work for you (assuming I read this correctly and assuming you tried / made the appropriate connection there).

When you say a ‘secondary monitor’ I assume that is the HDMI.

Is it the HDMI that you are not succeeding to get to work? … or do I have this backwards?