I made a fresh openSuSe 11.1 install and I cannot get any sound from the board (Asus A8V). It used to work with 10.3 and 11.0. I’ve searched a lot regarding this issue and tried very many different things:
-openSuSe sound trouble shooting
-updated alsa to the latest available (yes, alsa-firmware is there as well)
-deleted sound card, added it again from yast and also from alsaconf
-tried with and without pulse (with pulse I can see from volume meter that audio is coming but still no sound)
-alsamixer is tried many ways/times
-alsasound restart does not help either
It is like the output of the sound hardware is not enabled/active at all. There’s no hiss or any other noise coming. But I got no glue how to check if that really is the case.
So, after several hours of testing (different days) I’d really appreciate help here. Hopefully someone can give tips to fix the problem.
Ensure you moved both master and PCM volume controls up in your mixer to 95% when testing sound. After you have confirmed basic sound you can move those down to a lower level to remove distortion.
Please note that to determine if you have sound, please copy and paste the following speaker-test into a Gnome terminal or a kde konsole: speaker-test -c2 -l5 -twavYou should hear a female voice saying ‘FRONT LEFT’, ‘FRONT RIGHT’ five times. If you hear that voice, then you likely have an application or a codec problem. Post if that is the case, and the advice then will be different.
If you have no success with the audio troubleshooting guide, then I will need more information if I am to make a recommendation … So can you provide more very detailed information so a good recommendation can be given? You can do that, with your PC connected to the internet, by opening a gnome-terminal or a kde konsole and typing:
/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh
that will run a diagnostic script and post the output to a web site on the Internet. It will give you the URL of the web site. Please post that URL here. Just the URL. It may be that you need to run that script twice with root permissions.
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/soundWe also need that output.
Please note that to determine if you have sound, please copy and paste the following speaker-test into a Gnome terminal or a kde konsole: speaker-test -c2 -l5 -twavYou should hear a female voice saying ‘FRONT LEFT’, ‘FRONT RIGHT’ five times. If you hear that voice, then you likely have an application or a codec problem. Post if that is the case, and the advice then will be different.
Tried that one few others… no sound. Not even very silent - totally off.
If you have no success with the audio troubleshooting guide, then I will need more information if I am to make a recommendation … So can you provide more very detailed information so a good recommendation can be given? You can do that, with your PC connected to the internet, by opening a gnome-terminal or a kde konsole and typing:
/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh
that will run a diagnostic script and post the output to a web site on the Internet. It will give you the URL of the web site. Please post that URL here. Just the URL. It may be that you need to run that script twice with root permissions.
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/soundWe also need that output.
Thanks for that. I recommend you start by taking a detailed look at your mixer. You may wish to take notes, recording what combinations you tried, so that you do not repeat yourself.
I note this from the diagnostic script:
!!Amixer output
!!-------------
!!-------Mixer controls for card 0 [V8237]
Card hw:0 ‘V8237’/‘VIA 8237 with ALC850 at 0xe800, irq 22’
Mixer name : ‘Realtek ALC850 rev 0’
Simple mixer control ‘Surround’,0
Front Left: Playback 31 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
Front Right: Playback 31 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control ‘Surround Jack Mode’,0
Items: ‘Shared’ ‘Independent’
Item0: ‘Shared’
Simple mixer control ‘IEC958’,0
Mono: Playback on] Capture [off]
Simple mixer control ‘IEC958 Output’,0
Mono: Playback on]
Simple mixer control ‘IEC958 Playback AC97-SPSA’,0
Mono: 3 [100%]
Simple mixer control ‘IEC958 Playback Source’,0
Items: ‘PCM’ ‘Analog In’ ‘IEC958 In’
Item0: ‘PCM’
Simple mixer control ‘Channel Mode’,0
Items: ‘2ch’ ‘4ch’ ‘6ch’ ‘8ch’
Item0: ‘2ch’
Simple mixer control ‘Duplicate Front’,0
Mono: Playback [on]
Simple mixer control ‘External Amplifier’,0
Mono: Playback on]Sometimes users find they need to switch ON the External Amp to get sound. Others find the exact opposite. Try a different External Amp setting.
I note you have digital audio IEC958 enabled. Should it be enabled? Try disabling it. I have read of cases where inappropriately enabling digital audio caused users problems with their sound.
I note you have surround sound enabled, but have your mixer set for 2 channel. I don’t have such options on my rather basic PC, but that selected combination does not make sense to me. Consider modifying those settings as well.
Can you also, immediately after booting your PC, run the following, which will post the contents of your dmesg to a pastebin site. Then post the URL provided here. Just post the URL. I’m wondering if there are any hints in your dmesg as to what the problem might be:
dmesg > dmesg.txt && curl -F file=@dmesg.txt nopaste.com/a
I’ve tried pretty much every combination possible and that’s just a left over from these tests. I used to have similar problem with Fedora long time ago and that got fixed by changing the digital out.
-Ext. amp does not have any effect
-IEC958, no effect
-surround sound settings, no effect
Previously there was an issue (probably openSuSe 10.3 or something) with mute i.e. channel had to be muted and unmuted before there was any sound. In this case, no effect.
I’m pretty sure that I cannot get this solved with playing around with mixer - I’ve done a lot of that already (kmix and aumix).
I have the same motherboard and did not have any problems with the default setup of the onboard soundcard. (However, I actually use a PCI soundcard and don’t really use the onboard VIA device but can attempt to run it again to help you debug this problem if you wish.) Also, I run the x86_64 kernel whereas you are running the x86 kernel.
Could your problem be related to pulseaudio since AFAIK, pulseaudio is new in opensuse 11.1 and you mentioned that everything was working in previous versions of opensuse and SUSE.
Have you run the pulseaudio tool pavucontrol (available in pavucontrol-0.9.7-2.9) and checked to see if the VIA soundcard was enabled and the sound not muted?
anandrajan: I’ve tried pavucontrol but does not help. However, I’m not sure if there should be small red square with X on right side of the speaker icon or not. It does not look logical but that would not be the first time if something isn’t logical
I’d really appreciate if you could test the onboard audio to see if it works. If it does then it would be easier to figure out what is the cause for the problem.
Finally got the audio working. The reason for the problem is almost embarrassing: computer box’s front panel cable shortcutted the mboard audio circuit. There were two different connectors on same front panel cable and naturally I had picked the wrong connector. Immediately when the connector was plugged out the sound got out.
Glad to read you finally sorted. Congratulations on getting it to work.
anandrajan many thanks for your efforts. Its always GREAT when someone with the same or similar hardware pitches in to help. It provides that extra level of confidence to help users look closer at their setup.
