Hi, I recently discovered that on my laptop with OS 11 installed I have very poor sound quality.
The sound is relatively quiet, with volume level on maximum I hear a noise from speakers…additionaly mplayer can play sound but Kaffeine and Xine not.
I hadnt such problems on 10.3
Is it possible that these are problems with Pulse Audio?
How to revert than to older sound system known from 10.3?
With volume on Maximum one always hears noise from speakers. One is driving the speakers into a distortion area.
Check both your master and PCM volume controls to ensure they are up. Note PCM can be lowered without you doing anything by the launching of another multimedia app.
If that doesn’t seem to help, then please copy and paste the following into a konsole:
amixer scontents > mixer-settings.txt
and then open the file “mixer-settings.txt” and copy and paste it to general pastebin - simplified internet collaboration and post the URL here so we can see your mixer settings.
My log is at general pastebin - Something - post number 1085348
It looks for me like pulseaudio problems.I often see messages dsp device busy and only mplayer seems now to play sound but very quiet. Xine and kaffeine dont. :(((
Maybe I will try to revert to esound?
Compeltely remove the gstream engine and install xine engine.That was what causing my bad sound quality
Note kaffeine uses the xine sound engine, and the xine that comes from Novell/SuSE-GmbH is crippled for proprietary sound codecs. You need to update your software package management repositories per this URL: Repositories/11.0 - openSUSE-Community
adding NON-OSS, OSS, Update and Packman (only for now, … until you become more experienced).
Then install the libxine1, xine-ui, w32codec-all, xvid, mad and kaffeine as packaged by Packman. Since you had installed mplayer and were a 10.3 user I had originally assumed that you already knew that you needed to do that, but I am now having doubts about that familiarity.
Try setting the output sound module for xine to alsa.
Also, go to YaST > Hardware > Sound > Options > Volume and if the master and PCM volume there is very low (or too high), move it to between 60% and 70%. Also note that the audio control in VLC (if you use that app) is very prone to causing bad sound quality, and must be kept at a low level (using instead your mixer Master and PCM volume controls to control the volume).
I had something similar with my HP pavillion laptop.
Sound is clear if not quiet and every so often there is a distorted pop especially when closing apps.
Im currently looking for sound drivers but as with most laptops the sound card is built in so it may prove difficult.
Have you checked what drivers your sound card is running on and if they have any updates?
Hmm…strange enough after removing pulseaudio and back to esound, and removing xine and kaffeine now I see that my PCM volume switch on KMixer doesnt work.
Moving PCM result in no change in sound’s volume…
Reinstalling xine and kaffeine from Pacman repository didn’t help much
I will risk system update…maybe this fix…
I uptated system without X crash…what a surprise:)
But sound no change…
Nobody solved the problem?
How about telling us more about your hardware/software sound configuration? You can do that by opening a gnome-terminal / konsole, and with your PC connected to the internet copy and paste the following diagnostic script:
wget http://home.cfl.rr.com/infofiles/tsalsa && su -c 'bash ./tsalsa'
when prompted for a password, enter your root password. Try to accurately provide the # of jacks/plugs when asked … for example my pc has 3 i/o plugs/jacks. That diagnostic script will give you a URL when it is complete. Post the URL here.
Also, please provide the output of:
rpm -qa | grep alsa
rpm -qa | grep pulse
rpm -q libasound2
uname -a
cat /etc/modprobe.d/sound
you may need to install wget for that script to run (if not already installed). To do so, simply paste into a gnome-terminal / konsole:
su -c 'zypper install wget’
Well, I too have this laptop, and from a fresh opensuse 11.0 install audio seems to be ok, except for the microphone which I can’t get to work. In kmix I have three options as input source: mic, internal mic or line. Line works if I plugg an headset with a microphone, but the built-in mic still doesn’t work. Before having oo11 installed I had mandriva 2008 and I remember that audio wasn’t supported at the beginning, so I had to download a beta alsa version and build it myself (because my pc had a somewhat new audio intel HDA chipset) and I remember that the mic was detected as “webcam mic” and worked flawlessly. However I don’t have that option now
Its possible there is a fine tuning to your configuration that might help, but again, I need more information on the Acer 5315. How about telling us more about your hardware/software sound configuration? You can do that by opening a gnome-terminal / konsole, and with your PC connected to the internet copy and paste the following diagnostic script:
wget http://home.cfl.rr.com/infofiles/tsalsa && su -c 'bash ./tsalsa'
when prompted for a password, enter your root password. Try to accurately provide the # of jacks/plugs when asked … for example my pc has 3 i/o plugs/jacks. That diagnostic script will give you a URL when it is complete. Post the URL here.
Also, please provide the output of:
rpm -qa | grep alsa
rpm -qa | grep pulse
rpm -q libasound2
uname -a
cat /etc/modprobe.d/sound
you may need to install wget for that script to run (if not already installed). To do so, simply paste into a gnome-terminal / konsole:
su -c 'zypper install wget’
talsa output is here : tsalsa.txt - nopaste.com (beta)
and the output you requested:
zeph7r@zeph7r-laptop:~> rpm -qa | grep alsa
alsamixergui-0.9.0rc1-705.1
alsa-devel-1.0.16-39.1
FA_clalsadrv-1.2.2-0.pm.3
alsa-tools-1.0.16-47.1
alsa-tools-gui-1.0.16-47.1
alsa-oss-1.0.15-48.1
python-alsaaudio-0.3-0.pm.1
alsa-firmware-1.0.16-24.1
alsa-plugins-1.0.16-57.1
alsa-plugins-pulse-1.0.16-57.1
alsa-utils-1.0.16-35.1
alsa-1.0.16-39.1
kalsatools-1.5.0-544.1
zeph7r@zeph7r-laptop:~> rpm -qa | grep pulse
libxine1-pulse-1.1.14-0.pm.0
libpulsecore4-0.9.10-26.3
pulseaudio-0.9.10-26.3
alsa-plugins-pulse-1.0.16-57.1
gstreamer-0_10-pulse-0.9.7-42.pm.1
libpulse0-0.9.10-26.3
zeph7r@zeph7r-laptop:~> rpm -q libasound2
libasound2-1.0.16-39.1
zeph7r@zeph7r-laptop:~> uname -a
Linux zeph7r-laptop 2.6.25.11-0.1-default #1 SMP 2008-07-13 20:48:28 +0200 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
zeph7r@zeph7r-laptop:~> cat /etc/modprobe.d/sound
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
alias sound-slot-0 snd-hda-intel
zeph7r@zeph7r-laptop:~>
thanks for the assistance in advance
Thanks for that. It tells me your Acer 5315 is running a 32-bit openSUSE-11.0 with the latest (for 11.0) 2.6.25.11 kernel has an ALC268 hardware codec.
The “rpm -qa | grep alsa” command tells me what alsa apps, and also that your alsa version is 1.0.16 which is what mostly came with openSUSE-11.0 (ie you have not updated to any 3rd party packaged alsa).
This is useful to know as it tells me you have not applied the “acer” model option (yet) for the ALC268.
I also did a surf on the alsa web site for the ALC268 and I came up with this:
Search results - AlsaProject
which suggests an update was done in 1.0.17 of alsa wrt the mic:
hda-codec - Fix dmics on ALC268 in auto configuration
hda-codec - Add internal mic item for ALC268 acer model
.......
ALC268 models, the mic automute automatically switch between captures
… so you could edit your /etc/modprobe.d/sound file now with
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
alias sound-slot-0 snd-hda-intel
options snd-hda-intel model=acer
and restart your alsa sound driver module with rcalsasound restart (in a konsole / gnome terminal with root permissions) and then test your mic as a regular user.
However I do not believe that by itself is enough. I believe you may need to do that and update your alsa to 1.0.17. You can do so with the following commands (my reference for the alsa update is here: Alsa-update - openSUSE ) . Please copy and paste these commands into a gnome-terminal / konsole, with your laptop connected to the internet, one line at a time (after first typing “su” (entering root permissions) to get root permissions):
zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/multimedia:/audio/openSUSE_11.0/ multimedia
zypper install alsa alsa-devel alsa-plugins alsa-plugins-pulse alsa-utils alsa-tools alsa-tools-gui alsa-firmware libasound2
zypper rr multimedia
zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/multimedia:/audio:/KMP/openSUSE_11.0_Update/ multimedia
zypper install alsa-driver-kmp-default
zypper rr multimedia
Then restart your PC, and with the same change to the /etc/modprobe.d/sound file in place, test your mic.
If the change to the /etc/modprobe.d/sound file doesn’t help, remove it, restart your alsa with rcalsasound restart, and try your mic again.
My overall reference for the above troubleshooting method is here:
SDB:AudioTroubleshooting - openSUSE
Good luck.
thank you so much for the help oldcpu. I followed every step of your guide, and in the end there were still no resuts. It is all exactly the same.
Now I remember that when I installed a beta version of alsa back at when I was using mandriva 2008 I did indeed add that “options snd-hda-intel model=acer” to /etc/modprobe.d/sound file too…
i wish I could remember exactly what beta version I did install back then, that one version worked just fine… Anyway it’s odd I can’t get this to work since it has already been working before
Oh, just some update I forgot to make in the last post. Obviously, when I refer to the situation I had in mandriva I was refering to a situation where I had no sound at all, and when I finally had sound my mic was detected as a “webcam mic”. In my current situation in opensuse 11.0 I have fine sound, just no microphone.
Oh by the way, after having take further experimentation on a microphone plugged in through line in, my conclusion was that it is also not working well, as it doesn’t how high I put the controls for line in, there is always just a residual sound with very low intensity (however it seems to get the sound on the mic well, it’s just too low). If I set the tab high enough in kmix I get to ear myself through the speakers, but the recording is always done in that residual manner. (as my search in this forum showed, I guess this issue is somewhat the same some other user showed before)
IMHO if it worked before, then the problem is with your mixer. Ensure you have switched OFF all your mic settings as that is the most likely cause of noise.
But failing that, I recommend you write a bug report on alsa and on openSUSE, in order to get the alsa/sound devs to look at this:
I already filled a bug report in suse bugzilla, as there seemed to be already bugs reported related to this issue in alsa bugzilla. Hope there’s better support in the next version…
Did you add this thread (to the bug report) as additional/supplementary information to help the dev’s trying to sort the bug? Could you provide me the reference to your specific bug?