Can't switch sound output to headphones

Acer Aspire 7530 laptop running suse 11.1 x86_64

On this laptop in windows you have to switch the sound output to headphones using the soundcard’s software

I can’t find any way to do this in suse

The card is shown in Yast as MCP78S [Geforce 8200] High Definition Audio

Anyone have any ideas how I can switch the sound output to the headphone socket?

31 views and no responses … maybe I’ve asked on the wrong section?

Have a look here: SDB:AudioTroubleshooting - openSUSE

Run the script and post the information.

The laptop’s at home mate so I’ll do that tonight (it’s just coming up on lunchtime here)

Here ya go mate, here’s the link:

http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=9ad3cd01c4e024e204cc0051fd1b153b5aabc0e9

I see you also got the ALC888 (my laptop also got that one).

Try to install/compile the newest alsa drivers.

Then, in /etc/modprobe.d/sound add/modify the line:

options snd-hda-intel enable=1 index=0 model=auto

where model can take one of the values specified in the “ALSA-configuration.txt” in the alsa-driver sources, after the line containing the string “ALC880”. Here are some possible models:

      3stack-digout
      5stack
      5stack-digout
      6stack
      6stack-digout
      acer
      acer-aspire-4930g

Every time you change the model string, restart the sound service using the command “/etc/init.d/alsasound restart” as root.

If you’re lucky you can find one model that works.
Else you can ask in #alsa on freenode for someone to help you to set up a new model for your codec.

Before I tried your advice PVince81 I was getting a channel in kmix for headphones but there was no volume slider, like the channel was ‘greyed out’ so to speak

Adding options snd-hda-intel enable=1 index=0 model=auto to /etc/modprobe.d/sound as you suggested did get the headphone channel enabled complete with volume slider, thought we were in business!

(/etc/modprobe.d/sound was empty before doing this)

Still don’t get volume through the headphones though

Even in windows with this card you can’t just plug the headphones in and get sound through them, there’s an I/O section in the card’s ‘control panel’ and headphones have to be selected in there to get sound out of them and mute the speakers

It’s as if it’s almost there but there’s something I must do to ‘tell’ the card to send the output to the phones instead of the speakers … god knows what though

Incidentally there’s also a file called sound.YaST2Save in /etc/modprobe with the following lines in it:

options snd slots=snd-hda-intel

M71A.usNviCF37Y6:MCP78S [GeForce 8200] High Definition Audio

alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel

I’m assuming this file gets read in and wondering if the values in it might not be interfering

Can you provide more very detailed information so a good recommendation can be given? For openSUSE-11.1, you can do that, with your laptop connected to the internet, by opening a gnome-terminal or a kde konsole and twice copy and paste the following into that terminal/konsole

/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh

Run it the 1st time with root permissions. It will ask if you wish to do an update of the script. Select YES.

Then run it again (as either a regular user or as root). This time it will diagnose your PC’s hardware and software configuration for audio, and it will post its output on the Internet/web. It will give you the URL of the web site. Please post that URL here. JUST the URL.

Also, please copy and paste the following commands one line at a time into a gnome-terminal or a konsole and post here the output: rpm -qa | grep alsa
rpm -qa | grep pulse
rpm -q libasound2
uname -a
cat /etc/modprobe.d/sound… with that information I may be able to make a recommendation.

Also, do NOT waste too much time on this. Simply post on our forum if you get stumped, and continue to look for help that way.

Please note I am on vacation, so my reply may be 3 or 4 days in coming.

Note that instead of the model option “auto”, there are many other options one can try instead. From the alsa-configuration.txt file for 1.0.18 of alsa:

	ALC883/888
	  3stack-dig	3-jack with SPDIF I/O
	  6stack-dig	6-jack digital with SPDIF I/O
	  3stack-6ch    3-jack 6-channel
	  3stack-6ch-dig 3-jack 6-channel with SPDIF I/O
	  6stack-dig-demo  6-jack digital for Intel demo board
	  acer		Acer laptops (Travelmate 3012WTMi, Aspire 5600, etc)
	  acer-aspire	Acer Aspire 9810
	  medion	Medion Laptops
	  medion-md2	Medion MD2
	  targa-dig	Targa/MSI
	  targa-2ch-dig	Targs/MSI with 2-channel
	  laptop-eapd   3-jack with SPDIF I/O and EAPD (Clevo M540JE, M550JE)
	  lenovo-101e	Lenovo 101E
	  lenovo-nb0763	Lenovo NB0763
	  lenovo-ms7195-dig Lenovo MS7195
	  lenovo-sky	Lenovo Sky
	  haier-w66	Haier W66
	  3stack-hp	HP machines with 3stack (Lucknow, Samba boards)
	  6stack-dell	Dell machines with 6stack (Inspiron 530)
	  mitac		Mitac 8252D
	  clevo-m720	Clevo M720 laptop series
	  fujitsu-pi2515 Fujitsu AMILO Pi2515
	  3stack-6ch-intel Intel DG33* boards
	  auto		auto-config reading BIOS (default)

Note they can only be applied one at a time, and alsa must be restarted between each attempt, either by restarting the pc, or by typing in a terminal: su -c ‘rcalsasound restart’ enter root password, restart one’s mixer, and test the sound.

On my laptop I don’t have a headphone channel. When I plug a headphone/external speakers into the jack, it will automatically switch to headphone/out mode and the laptop speakers will mute.

In your case, like oldcpu advised, you can try the other model strings.

I did try every model, other than the channels being available (or not) in kmix/alsamixer makes little difference to the actual behaviour of the card

Automatically switching to headphone output and muting speakers isn’t what the card in this laptop does

Even on the factory default setup it never did that but had to be switched over ‘manually’ using the card’s software

Therein lies the problem

I was hoping there would be a command or setting (like in a conf file somewhere) that could redirect the output to headphones, I wouldn’t even mind if it was permanently set to use headphones as I generally plug in portable speakers when I don’t want to use headphones anyway

But … I can’t use external speakers unless I’m in windows anyway because, you guessed it, for it to use the external speakers the sound has to be redirected to the headphone socket I’m plugging them into

It’s just an annoyance having to boot into windows every time I wanna use the headphones

At the risk of being flamed, I confess I have to state that I’m skeptical about this claim wrt Linux.

It appears you have 1.0.17/1.0.18 of alsa installed, but you did not answer my request about installed rpms. I note this on the alsa page in searching for the ALC888 that your laptop has: Search results - AlsaProject - ALC888 search results which specifically notes update to alsa for the ALC888 wrt the headphones.

But given you did not provide the answer to this request:

I can provide no more advice. That information is necessary for the methodology that I follow in troubleshooting.

Good luck with your efforts, and I’ll quietly leave this thread.

  1. From the alsa information you posted before it seems that the headphone channel is redirected to the “Surround” mixer control.

Please try to unmute all mixer controls and increase the volume and see which one controls the headphone jack.

You might be able to set the volume of the headphone jack to some value, and mute the front mixer control which will mute your internal speakers.

  1. Also, it would be better that you upgrade your alsa drivers to the latest version (1.0.21), because what I mentionned in 1) is just a workaround. As oldcpu mentioned, many problems related to your sound chipset have been fixed since then.
    Once you have upgrade, please try the “auto” again.

There is guidance for updating alsa here: Alsa-update - openSUSE
Note one must send SIX zypper commands for the update of alsa in the user space.

And if one applies the daily snapshots, one must send SIX MORE zypper commands.