No Sound Gateway Mx3228 Laptop

English Hardware
1

I have just installed Open Suse 11 today, This is my first time using Linux and I am fairly happy so far. I have manged to get everything working except for my sound. I am fairly certain it is setup right but I might be missing somthing.

I have added my user account to the audio group.under Yast and sound config it says my card is a VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 audio controller which sounds bang on. says the sound card number is 0 and the drive is snd-via82xx

The issue is i got no sound what so ever cant play music nothing. I have a separate volume control for the laptop which is installed and working by default i can turn the volume up and down and mute it via this button seems to work fine. I have checked it is not muted. I checked alsamixer volume is all turned on no mute options. Now i am wondering is it possible that it wont play through my laptop speakers and wants separate ones?

Please advice if anyone has any recommendations, Like i said i am new to linux so please bare with me.

2

openSUSE-11.0 is not the newest openSUSE version. 11.1 is newer, and 11.1 does support more sound devices.

Still, you could try working your way thru the openSUSE audio troubleshooting guide:
SDB:AudioTroubleshooting - openSUSE
… that guide does assume a basic level of Linux knowledge, and so you may struggle with the guide.

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 copying and pasting in to that konsole/terminal:

wget -O alsa-info.sh http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-info.sh && bash 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.

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.

3

Sorry my mistake I do have 11.1 I just downloaded it yesterday.

i would also like to add i use to have the little volume icon down by what i would say is the system tray and it seems to have disappeared. while i was trying to figure this out. Not sure if that helps at all.

I tried that trouble shooting guide got most of the way thru but i still didn’t have sound. Yeah i did get kind of lost

i ran the test you suggested i did not hear the female voice. I have adjusted my volume to 100% and have increased the volume on the laptop control as well.

I ran that script you sent me it didnt give me a link at the end it said that my info was uploaded to: please submit it to the person helping you. but there was no url listed.

First step responce
alsa-1.0.18-8.7
alsa-plugins-pulse-1.0.18-6.12
alsa-plugins-1.0.18-6.12
alsa-utils-1.0.18-6.4
alsa-firmware-1.0.17-1.42
alsa-oss-1.0.17-1.37

Second
pulseaudio-0.9.12-9.6
pulseaudio-module-zeroconf-0.9.12-9.6
pulseaudio-esound-compat-0.9.12-9.6
libpulse0-0.9.12-9.6
alsa-plugins-pulse-1.0.18-6.12
pulseaudio-module-lirc-0.9.12-9.6
libpulsecore4-0.9.12-9.6
pulseaudio-module-bluetooth-0.9.12-9.6
libpulse-browse0-0.9.12-9.6
pulseaudio-utils-0.9.12-9.6
pulseaudio-module-gconf-9.12-9.6
libpulse-mainloop-glib0-0.9.12-9.6
pulseaudio-module-x11-0.9.12-9.6

Third
libasound2-1.0.18-8.7

Forth
Linux DavidLinux 2.6.27.7-9-default #1 SMP 2008-12-04 18:10:04 +0100 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

Fifth

Ssy1.4IVJSDDDGu8:VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller

alias snd-card-0 snd-via82xx

thank you for your help.

4

The script should work. Since you have 11.1 (and not 11.0) try this different way to run the script (only works on 11.1):

open a gnome terminal or kde konsole and type “su” (no quotes - enter root password when prompted) to get root permissions, and then type the following twice:
/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh
the first time is to update the script. The second time it will run the script and give you a URL. The URL may be in a different colour on your konsole, so you may need to highlight the area where you think the url should be on the konsole, to get the URL to show.

If that does not work, then try :
/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh --pastebin

or if that does not work, try:
/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh --no-upload
where in this last case it will paste the output in your /tmp directory in a file called something like alsa-info.txt. Open that file with a text editor, and then paste the file to general pastebin - simplified internet collaboration and post here the URL of the paste bin site.

5

This looks incomplete. You are missing the 1st line. Please again run:
cat /etc/modprobe.d/sound
and post here the output.

6

First one ran it twice did exactly like you said and it gives me this:
Your ALSA information is located at
Please inform the person helping you.
I checked but there is nothing after the at

Second one gives me this
general pastebin - davidk - post number 1336144
Which looks like what you want.

and the missing info is here sorry about that
options snd slots=snd-via82xx

Ssy1.4IVJSDDDGu8:VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller

alias snd-card-0 snd-via82xx

once again thanks so much for your help.

7

OK, thats it. Your PC has an ALC250 (with the VIA8237). I found nothing re: the ALC250 searching the alsa site. There is lots written about the VIA8237, but none of it is basic.

But I did note this on the web re: the Gateway MX3228 laptop:
HOWTO: Gateway MX3228 Sound Driver - Ubuntu Forums
It refers to your external amp setting in your mixer. I tried to check that in the script output you gave me general pastebin - davidk - post number 1336144 , but your paste was cut off, making it IMPOSSIBLE for me to check that. >:( >:(

So you will have to check that yourself ! i.e. Try applying the Ubuntu instructions:

  1. Double click on the “Volume Control” Icon in your upper taskbar.

  2. Click on “Edit”.

  3. Click on “Preferences”.

  4. Scroll down and find “External Amplifiers”

  5. Tick off “External Amplifiers”.

  6. Click “Close”.

  7. Back in Volume Control, click on the “Switches” tab.

  8. Untick “External Amplifier”.

  9. Click “Close”

Sound will now work.
It will be a bit different under openSUSE (ie it probably will be lower and not upper task bar), but the basic philosophy is to toggle the External Amplifier setting a couple of times.

In case that does not help, I did note there were some updates to the via82xx in 1.0.18 of alsa:
Search results - AlsaProject

Since openSUSE-11.1 comes with a mix of 1.0.17 and 1.0.18 of alsa, its possible it does not have the very latest alsa fixes for the via82xx.

So, you could try an update to your alsa version, to see if that might help. You can do that by opening a kde konsole or a gnome terminal, type “su” (no quotes, enter root password when prompted) to get root permissions, and then with your PC connected to the internet, copy and paste and run the following six commands, one at a time in sequence into the konsole/terminal :

zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/multimedia:/audio/openSUSE_11.1/ multimedia   

 zypper install alsa alsa-oss plugins plugins-pulse alsa-utils alsa-tools alsa-firmware libasound2 

 zypper rr multimedia 

zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/multimedia:/audio:/KMP/openSUSE_11.1/ multimedia 

zypper install alsa-driver-kmp-default 

 zypper rr multimedia

and restart your PC and test your sound again. Remember to carefully check your mixer (especially re: the external amp setting).

Thanks.

8

it was the External Amplifier thing. Bang on. Thank you so much for your help thank you thank you thank you.

that shuts off the ablilty to adjust via the external volume control but thats fine once the sound is set to a nice level i wont have to adjust again.

Thank you so much for your help

9

Super! Glad to read sound is working.

Thanks for sharing your solution.