What test are you using as a criteria to determine if more than mono sound works?
Only this? -
Some time back, after I finally purchased a 5.1 surround speaker system, I played around with it a bit, and I made this post: Exploring surround sound in Linux - openSUSE Forums
… perhaps have a read through that and maybe there is something there that might give you an idea wrt this problem you are reporting.
How confident are you that you have the speakers connected properly ? Many times that can be the problem for new users. Do you have this working under another operating system ?
I forgot to mention, if using KDE, ensure that the priority of devices you have selected in Desktop Settings > Multimedia is consistent with the priority (and numbering) of devices in YaST > Hardware > Sound.
hi oldcpu,
well, I think that only you can find the solution. Basically you say that everything in my configuration looks well, and that means just more concern for me…
But first of all: no I am not dreaming.
After a life spent on a guitar playing Bach on the stages of two continents I really hope to be able to hear the difference between mono and stereo. What happens in my installation is that:
_left/
/ right—\
instead that:
____________________________ left
____________________________ right
In other words, there is just one channel!
Or, if you like, it sounds like a radio in the '60 years.
Finally, if I dim alternatively left and right channel it sounds identically, but on other speakers.
Concerning a 2+1 or even 4+1, that looks in this case as impossible because all speakers seam to be built on the same geometric line.
Perhaps some musicians substitute the reality with the own imagination: I don’t, I am also doctor in physical chemistry and I changed my profession after 8 publications as nmr pioneer. Trust me, that signal is in mono!!!
I also installed a couple of msi gt640 and there is no problem.
Well, I hope I was a good defense lawyer :).
Now, if I start the sound module in yast, then “edit” and “next”, and the module freezes. I assumed that the module is malfunctioning, like the kernel that finds in my laptop 8 cpu’s (HURRAH!!!).
I done following for test purpose:
I reseted by deletion my kde desktop: no improvement.
I tested under gnome: no improvement.
I putted on the work kaffeine in dvb-s mode: HD stations have no sound, the same stations on a msi gt640 work properly. So, no high definition sound.
I assume something is wrong with the sound card driver or sound card codecs or both. It wouldn’t be the first time: as example, the “mainstream” driver iwlagn doesn’t work for me and I had to compile instead a snapshot version by intel.
Tomorrow I will get a try and inform you about.
Please, look meantime for some “sound idea”
thanks a lot, indeed.
There is an excellent help source if I fail, and you are correct, that from the little I know your configuration looks ok.
Does this work in another computer operating system? Do you by chance have a liveCD of some other Linux distribution that you can boot to in order to confirm this works.
I have had cases where a family member or the maid, when cleaning, knocked a cable or two loose from my computer, and put it back in place in the wrong place, and sound did not function proper … so double check your cables …
I understand you restarted with a clean desktop in KDE, but maybe the default is not so good. Did you still in KDE, ensure that the priority of devices you have selected in Desktop Settings > Multimedia is consistent with the priority (and numbering) of devices in YaST > Hardware > Sound ?
If all else fails, then you some addition approaches to proceed:
alsa IRC channel
using client software such as xchat, log on to IRC “freenode” to channel #alsa and also for help there. One of the sound gurus there may be able to help, but you might have to ask a dozen times at different times of the day over the course of one week.
write a bug report on 11.2
go to Submitting Bug Reports - openSUSE for guidance and write a bug report on openSUSE-11.2. Use your forum username and password to log on to the bug reporting tool. Submit the bug report against 11.2 component “sound”. Note the packager for sound for openSUSE will address that bug report and they also happen to be an alsa developer, so you will be in good hands. They will NOT (ie they will refuse) to read a forum thread, so you need to ensure all salient information is in the bug report. Run the diagnostic script with the --no-upload option which will create an /tmp/alsa-info.txt file and attach that to the bug report:
/tmp/alsa-info.sh --no-upload
*]don’t forget to try a liveCD as a hardware check - also consider downloading openSUSE-11.3 milestone3 liveCD , test sound with it (don’t install, just boot to liveCD and test), and if that fails, write a bug report on 11.3. My view is you will likely get more attention on an 11.3 bug report than if written on 11.2. You could say in the 11.3 bug report that the problem also exists on 11.2.
SOLVED!!
hi oldcpu,
your knowledge, your friendly attitude, your human values, and your productivity make of you perhaps the greatest moderator.
The more I hear from you the more I like you.
Well, last night I found somewhere an article from a german guy.
Basically hi says that alsa is on trouble by reason of undisclosed
hda chip characteristics. Fearing the competition, the manufacturers keep the secret. The bitter consequence is that often alsa people can’t know what codec will work exactly. So you get users on trouble reporting working speakers after plugging in the header, missed channels and so on. I was also victim of this problem and my wireless header is still connected to an aureon usb card. I thought it make sense, explaining me on the same time a lot of things. So I made
==> /proc/asound/card0/codec#1 <==
Codec: LSI ID 1040
Than I checked the alsa documentation in
/usr/share/doc/packages/alsa-driver-kmp/ALSA-Configuration.txt
and there is no trace at all of ALC888. I assumed it should be
under “Module snd-hda-intel”.
then I checked /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound-conf.txt and everything was in order
options snd slots=snd-hda-intel,snd-usb-audio
u1Nb.qiP79F15hQ5:5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
Finally I downloaded LinuxPkg_5.14rc5.tar.bz2 from realtek.
Checked for alc888 presence, compiled-installed automatically, rebooted, reopened all channels with yast-sound.
Now the sound works exactly but my sound installation is messed due to the many experiments
Great idea about 11.3 livecd: I will try before reinstalling everything here.
I am supposed to be as short as possible, but I will still open a new thread about the 8 cpu’s.
After that I would like to post a thread about installing this laptop, because is not too easy.
Yes, its there under HD-Audio-Models.txt file. The options listing for the ALC888 is here from that file:
ALC882/883/885/888/889
======================
3stack-dig 3-jack with SPDIF I/O
6stack-dig 6-jack digital with SPDIF I/O
arima Arima W820Di1
targa Targa T8, MSI-1049 T8
asus-a7j ASUS A7J
asus-a7m ASUS A7M
macpro MacPro support
mb5 Macbook 5,1
mbp3 Macbook Pro rev3
imac24 iMac 24'' with jack detection
imac91 iMac 9,1
w2jc ASUS W2JC
3stack-2ch-dig 3-jack with SPDIF I/O (ALC883)
alc883-6stack-dig 6-jack digital with SPDIF I/O (ALC883)
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
acer-aspire-4930g Acer Aspire 4930G
acer-aspire-6530g Acer Aspire 6530G
acer-aspire-7730g Acer Aspire 7730G
acer-aspire-8930g Acer Aspire 8930G
medion Medion Laptops
medion-md2 Medion MD2
targa-dig Targa/MSI
targa-2ch-dig Targa/MSI with 2-channel
targa-8ch-dig Targa/MSI with 8-channel (MSI GX620)
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-m540r Clevo M540R (6ch + digital)
clevo-m720 Clevo M720 laptop series
fujitsu-pi2515 Fujitsu AMILO Pi2515
fujitsu-xa3530 Fujitsu AMILO XA3530
3stack-6ch-intel Intel DG33* boards
intel-alc889a Intel IbexPeak with ALC889A
intel-x58 Intel DX58 with ALC889
asus-p5q ASUS P5Q-EM boards
mb31 MacBook 3,1
sony-vaio-tt Sony VAIO TT
auto auto-config reading BIOS (default)
I suppose we could have tried forcing one of those model options in the /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf file, prior to trying the realtek audio. If you do end up re-installing openSUSE some time in the future, we can try that prior to your installing realtek drivers. Still, alsa-1.0.21 is very good for auto detecting one’s hardware, so I am surprised (although I believe) that your hardware has likely not properly auto detected by alsa.
Glad to read that worked, but I confess now that I see what you have succeeded with, I think we could succeed without that driver (and succeeded with the alsa driver), but we would be forced to try all the different model options, one at a time, until we located one that works. i.e. edits to the /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf that looked something like:
options snd-hda-intel model=targa-2ch-dig
options snd slots=snd-hda-intel,snd-usb-audio
# u1Nb.qiP79F15hQ5:5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
hi oldcpu!
I am connected using the 11.3 livecd.
Here the results:
Sound OK!!!
Header OK
Wireless (iwlagn) OK!!!
but the icon in the tray becomes stuck and you don’t remark
it as long you don’t check in My Computer or just try.
Graphic Card (Geforce GTS 250M) Catastrophic!
No Sax. No block device files. I had to import a xorg.conf using the patitioner and change the named
driver to “vesa”, the whole after restarting in text mode.
Nothing for beginners.
CPU OK but there are still 8 cpu’s. Frequency well recognized.
Please tell them that if they can do the same with vodka I can
provide more as 500.000 subscriptions.
Actually that’s a very new cpu brand, introduced in january.
Soon I have to leave, but I’ll be back in 7-8 hours. I’ll leave
the laptop powered on. If I can test something more, just drop
me a message. After reinstalling 11.2, I can also experiment
with everything because my installation is always backed up with
copy -a offline. Restoring takes 20 min. because my documents and other stuff are on different drives.
If you keep playing with 11.3 milestone’s, you could post your observations in this thread: Pre-Release/Beta - openSUSE Forums Thats where most of our forum beta testers hang out.
I noticed the same, and that was a BIG (pleasant) surprise to me , as I feared the worst. 11.3 milestone3 introduced a new version of GCC (that was NOT in milestone2), and my limited experience over the years has seen many cases were a GCC update caused no end of problems. Hence I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the usability of 11.3.
On MSI GT740, 04.11.2010
After installing opensuse 11.2 x86_64 I get just one working sound channel, like to say the sound is in mono! In addition the loudness is insufficient, but that happens also under windows 7 by disabling SRS, a compressor providing an appropriate sound quality for gamers.
This will update the ALSA kernel module and driver, right now to
version 1.0.20. Check with :~> cat /proc/asound/version
Yast | Hardware | Sound
Edit “5 Series/3400…”
Select “Use the given board model”, an input box will appear.
I found 3 different and meaningful options:
acer
medion
targa-dig
The last one provides a dramatic loudness and opens all channels providing a very nice stereo effect, so I filled the input box with “targa-dig”.
Your /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf should look like this:
Before the change in Yast:
options snd slots=snd-hda-intel
u1Nb.qiP79F15hQ5:5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio
u1Nb.qiP79F15hQ5:5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
The first line makes the difference.
Reconfigure your mixer adding the undisplayed channels and you are set!
The “woofer” is controlled by “Front”
The other speakers are controlled by “Master” and you will need to reduce a bit their Volume.
PERSISTENT BUG:
I don’t get sound on dvb-s HD senders. However, I have here also 2 msi gt640: alsa installs perfectly from oss repo and there is no problem with HD sound. I conclude that the HD sound doesn’t work by driver insufficiency. Let hope in the next life
It reads like you had some success, albeit not as much as you would have liked.
Congratulations on getting as far as you have.
Reference a fix in a future version, IMHO there will be no fix unless you take the lead in helping the alsa developer make the fix. Our community is THAT small that in truth it is up to user’s like you and me to make this happen.
The way to do this is via the bug report that I suggested earlier:
write a bug report on 11.2
go to Submitting Bug Reports - openSUSE for guidance and write a bug report on openSUSE-11.2. Use your forum username and password to log on to the bug reporting tool. Submit the bug report against 11.2 component “sound”. Note the packager for sound for openSUSE will address that bug report and they also happen to be an alsa developer, so you will be in good hands. They will NOT (ie they will refuse) to read a forum thread, so you need to ensure all salient information is in the bug report. Run the diagnostic script with the --no-upload option which will create an /tmp/alsa-info.txt file and attach that to the bug report:
/tmp/alsa-info.sh --no-upload
And if they do not respond to the 11.2 bug report, then try out an openSUSE-11.3 Milestone4 (or Milestone5) liveCD, edit the /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf file, restart alsa with root permissions with “rcalsasound restart” and restart the mixer and test. And assuming same problem is still there in 11.3 (and I expect it will be) then write the bug report on 11.3. I find that often one gets faster action if one writes on the latest openSUSE milestone version.
…well, first of all I apologize: if I don’t answer on a subject it doesn’t mean that I don’t consider about! I have to leave now, so I will write about “the posting bugs project” later.
Dear oldcpu,
sorry, life can bring sometimes a hard time! So, I don’t post bugs before I don’t know and understand them (old windows programmer…:)). Here the results:
Alsa makes a great job. Just Yast → Sound → Edit
Select “use the given board model” and push “edit”.
Put in the box medion, in my case the best result.
confirm, back to the first window, select “other” → Volume and reopen the channels.
Restart KMix and reconfigure the channels.
Done!
Concerning the HD features:
Packman was messing with the codecs to get them better, but I had an earlier installation with well working codecs.
Kaffeine 3 by Packman did work selecting OSS for audio output. At this point the only working Kaffeine 4 version resulted to be the one in the official install repository. By anything else, no HD.
By OpenSuse 13.3:
Alsa: the same like by 11.2.
HD: Packman did it, the codecs are OK.
Kaffeine 3 - Packman works even with alsa as xine selection.
Kaffeine 4 - Tried 4 version an “forget it”.
