I just installed openSUSE today on a partition on an external hard drive and the audio is extremely quiet. I have to turn my speakers up all the way in order to hear stuff and even then the audio is really distorted. I have PCM, Master, and Speaker turned up all the way in KMixer (I’ve heard people talking about a channel called, “Front” but I don’t have it.)
I’m really new to Linux so if you could treat me like so I’d appreciate it haha. Will give any info you need.
60 views and no replies? Come on now.
Welcome to openSUSE forums.
Please provide the information requested for sound problems, per the second half of this stickie:
Welcome to multimedia sub-area - openSUSE Forums
http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=0f57e2f55967dcd6ecc79da132c74196a4ee5710
alsa-utils-1.0.21-3.1.i586
alsa-oss-1.0.17-25.2.i586
alsa-1.0.21-3.2.i586
alsa-plugins-1.0.21-3.3.i586
libxine1-pulse-1.1.16.1-7.6.i586
libpulse0-0.9.19-2.3.i586
libasound2-1.0.21-3.2.i586
Linux linux-i04s 2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT 2009-10-26 15:49:03 +0100 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
options snd slots=snd-hda-intel
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
Thanks. I note a Sony VGC-RB60G with the 32-bit 2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop kernel. The PC has a SigmaTel CXD9872RD/K (first time I recall seeing this codec mentioned on our forum, and my first indirect “encounter” with it).
First, do you have another Operating System (OS) on this PC (such as XP, Vista, or Windows7) ? If so, do they have similar low audio levels?
If you have no other OS to check, then please double check your cable connections from PC to speakers.
The script indicates your volume settings in your PC’s mixer are maxed out, so you should be getting lots of volume. Please also go to YaST > Hardware > Sound > other > volume and confirm there the volume levels are very high (although if they were not high, I suspect I would have noticed it on the script output).
Assuming still low volume levels then you could try forcing a model option upon start of the alsa sound driver, although 11.2 is VERY good for autodetecting and autoconfiguring the driver, so I am skeptical that will work. But we can try it.
I notice from the HD-Audio-Models.txt file for 1.0.21 of alsa the following list for the STAC9872, which I assume (I could be wrong) is appropriate for your PC’s CXD9872RD/K :
STAC9872
========
vaio VAIO laptop without SPDIF
auto BIOS setup (default)
So you could try to force “auto”, and if that does not work, then replace “auto” with “vaio” and force that.
To force this, edit your PCs /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf file, by adding a line to that file. You can edit the file :
in gnome by typing: gnomesu gedit /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf
in KDE by typing: **kdesu ‘kwrite /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf’ **
and enter root password when prompted.
For the “auto” model option, you add a line to start of the file so that it looks like this:
options snd-hda-intel model=auto
options snd slots=snd-hda-intel
# u1Nb.sYhCI1EfSbC:82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
save the change, and restart your alsa sound driver by typing: su -c ‘rcalsasound restart’ and restart your mixer (kmix in KDE and alsamixer in gnome) and test your sound. It may be worse. It maybe better. It may have no change.
If that does not help, then in that edited /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf file, change “auto” for “vaio” and save the change, and restart your alsa sound driver by typing: su -c ‘rcalsasound restart’ and restart your mixer (kmix in KDE and alsamixer in gnome) and test your sound. It may be worse. It maybe better. It may have no change.
If it does not work, then simply remove the line that was added.
At that point, assuming no improvement, you are in bug reporting territory. There is guidance for raising bug reports here: Submitting Bug Reports - openSUSE
Please raise the bug against openSUSE-11.2 component “sound”. For the bug report, please run the alsa-info.sh script again with the no-upload option:
/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh --no-upload
which will put the file alsa-info.txt in your PC’s /tmp directory. Please add that alsa-info.txt file as an attachment to your openSUSE-11.2 bug report. By writing a bug report, this will come to the immediate attention of the Novell/SuSE-GmbH packager of sound for openSUSE.
Please note that the Novell/SuSE-GmbH packager of sound for openSUSE is also an alsa sound driver developer. If anyone can solve this, he can. And if he solves this, he sends the fixes up stream to be incorporated in alsa (and not just in openSUSE), so that all Linux distributions/users benefit from your efforts to help.
Good luck.
I’m dual booting with Vista and sound works fine in that.
When I had tried Ubuntu months and months ago, my sound was doing the same thing in that. As I said, I think it has to do with Alsa not receiving the sound information from my, “Front” jack, which is where my speakers plug in.
I’ll send the bug report when Novell lets me make an account, it keeps timing out.
Its not the same account you have here? Its been so long since I setup my account, I can’t remember.
Oh, so it is, haha! /facepalm
Like I said, I’m really new to this. 
I just reinstalled openSUSE and chose GNOME this time, and now the sound mixer is showing my card as, “Internal Audio 1 output Analog Stereo Output” And trying to start Alsamixer returns this:
linux-4civ:/home/VerticalHorizon # alsamixer
ALSA lib pulse.c:229: (pulse_connect) PulseAudio: Unable to connect: Connection refused
cannot open mixer: Connection refused
EDIT: I was just (barely) listening to some music and boom, audio is now completely gone.
I opened PulesAudio volume control and the little noise indicator is bouncing and showing signs of sound, but I hear nothing.
I do not use gnome. But I have read Gnome has many different details in its sound implementation, in comparison to KDE. Gnome developers, I’ve read, have pretty much passed the entire sound system for Gnome over to pulse, while the KDE developers have remained a step back.