No sound in HP Pavilion dv6995la with openSUSE 12.1

English Multimedia
1

Hi all Linux gurus, I rescued my old Pavilion notebook for using it with the new openSUSE 12.1 (x64). I bought a new CPU (AMD Turion TL-64), 4GB of RAM, and a 60GB SSD drive. Installation went really smooth but sound never showed up.

After several days of trying all possible solutions in this forum I come to you defeated. I’m not hoping to fix the problem just for me but for all the Pavilion users with a notebook with PC Board part number 459565-001. You can see the list here

So here is the data for diagnosing my muted notebook

alsa-info.sh > http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=27a85bed2158cab4fdbc8435c7ca647eaf44f2c3

linux-0xyg:/home/pancho # rpm -qa '*alsa*'
alsa-plugins-32bit-1.0.24-66.1.x86_64
alsa-oss-1.0.17-67.1.x86_64
alsa-1.0.24.1-121.1.x86_64
alsa-tools-debuginfo-1.0.24.1-33.1.x86_64
alsa-plugins-pulse-1.0.24-66.1.x86_64
alsa-firmware-1.0.24.1-19.1.noarch
alsa-plugins-pulse-32bit-1.0.24-66.1.x86_64
alsa-docs-1.0.24.1-121.1.noarch
alsa-plugins-jack-1.0.24-66.1.x86_64
alsa-tools-1.0.24.1-33.1.x86_64
alsa-plugins-jack-32bit-1.0.24-66.1.x86_64
alsa-plugins-1.0.24-66.1.x86_64
alsa-driver-kmp-desktop-1.0.24.20111126_k3.1.0_1.2-1.1.x86_64
alsa-utils-1.0.24.2-58.1.x86_64
alsa-oss-32bit-1.0.17-67.1.x86_64


linux-0xyg:/home/pancho # rpm -qa '*pulse*'
pulseaudio-1.1-1.2.x86_64
pulseaudio-module-x11-1.1-1.2.x86_64
pulseaudio-module-jack-1.1-1.2.x86_64
pulseaudio-utils-1.1-1.2.x86_64
libpulse-mainloop-glib0-1.1-1.2.x86_64
pulseaudio-module-zeroconf-1.1-1.2.x86_64
alsa-plugins-pulse-1.0.24-66.1.x86_64
libpulse0-1.1-1.2.x86_64
pulseaudio-module-bluetooth-1.1-1.2.x86_64
alsa-plugins-pulse-32bit-1.0.24-66.1.x86_64
pulseaudio-lang-1.1-1.2.noarch
pulseaudio-module-lirc-1.1-1.2.x86_64
libxine1-pulse-1.1.20-59.3.x86_64
libpulse0-32bit-1.1-1.2.x86_64


linux-0xyg:/home/pancho # rpm -q libasound2 
libasound2-1.0.24.1-23.1.2.x86_64


linux-0xyg:/home/pancho # uname -a
Linux linux-0xyg.site 3.1.0-1.2-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Nov 3 14:45:45 UTC 2011 (187dde0) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

linux-0xyg:/home/pancho # cat /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf

options snd slots=snd-hda-intel
# M71A.k5JPLyF5+X5:MCP67 High Definition Audio
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel

I know this configuration might be a bit sloppy but with all the testing I’ve have done you can’t expect more.

Thank you in advance,

Pancho

2

I assume you installed the application pulse audio volume control (pavucontrol) and ran that application at the same time as you were trying audio playback in an application, and attempted to tune pavucontrol and failed to get sound. If thats not the case, please try that …

Once you note that fails, then please read on …

Where did you get that rpm from ? It looks to me that it came from here:


http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/multimedia:/audio:/KMP/openSUSE_Factory/x86_64/

… which is factory, and if it were me I would NOT recommend installing that rpm unless specifically advised by the SuSE-GmbH sound packager to do so. That could in fact be contributing to your problem, and it is quite possible than any recommendation I make from here is a complete waste of your and my time due to that rpm being installed … I just don’t know. IMHO a driver from factory is always risky without more guidance provided by someone ‘in the know’ …

Anyway, from the diagnostic script I note a Conexant CX20561 (Hermosa) which I believe uses the same model options (and may indeed be the same hardware audio codec, but with a different name) as the CX5051. In the HD-Audio-Models.txt file, one can see the following model options for a CX5051 …


Conexant 5051
=============
  laptop	Basic Laptop config (default)
  hp		HP Spartan laptop
  hp-dv6736	HP dv6736
  hp-f700	HP Compaq Presario F700
  ideapad	Lenovo IdeaPad laptop
  lenovo-x200	Lenovo X200 laptop
  toshiba	Toshiba Satellite M300

so an assumption I will make now is the alsa sound driver was not adequately configured upon the start of the alsa sound driver, and it is useful to apply each of those sound options (one at a time) to see if one of those will better configure your sound driver to function.

To test an option (say you wish to try ‘toshiba’ then add this line to the START of your /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf file (note other distributions use a different file) :


options snd-hda-intel model=toshiba

and save the change, restart your alsa sound driver (either by rebooting or running with root permissions ‘rcalsasound restart’ and saying no to any kde questions to keep an old configuration) and as a regular user resart your mixer and test (using kmix / alsamixer and pavucontrol to tune audio).

If ‘toshiba’ fails, to try another option (such as ‘hp’) just replace ‘toshiba’ with ‘hp’ in that line you added to the /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf file. Restart your alsa sound driver, your mixer and test.

ok to do this, you need to raise a bug report on this, so that an alsa sound driver developer will apply a bug fix upstream, so that this will work automatically upon booting for all GNU/Linux distributions. Fortunately the SuSE-GmbH packager for sound driver for openSUSE also happens to be an alsa sound driver developer. So I recommend then you write a bug report on openSUSE-12.1 (where there is guidance here: openSUSE:Submitting bug reports - openSUSE and use your openSUSE forum username and password to log on to bugzilla) and attach to the bug report you raise the file /tmp/alsa-info.txt that you get from running the script:


/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh --no-upload

and describe the problem in the bug report. Ensure it is complete and do not reference a forum thread as the SuSE-GmbH packager (who is also an alsa sound driver developer) will refuse to read a forum thread. Then watch the thread (check every day) and look for a ‘need info’ flag. When you see that, answer the question the SuSE-GmbH sound packager poses, and CLEAR the ‘need info’ flag.

Raise that bug report EVEN IF you succeed with the 50-sound.conf file edits. Because only that way will the SuSE-GmbH packager be able to take your fix and send it upstream so that it is applied for all GNU/Linux distributions to benefit.

Good luck on this !

3

oldcpu, thanks a lot for your suggestions but none of the models worked.

I tried playing back an mp3 with VLC while adjusting volume with pavucontrol to no avail.

Maybe this notebook is not meant to work with Linux. I’m pretty much frustated right now :frowning:

Any idea will be much appreciated,

Pancho

4

Please read what I noted about a bug report. The SuSE-GmbH packager for sound is an alsa developer and if ANY one can solve this, they can. And most the time they are fairly responsive about solving a sound problem. IMHO raising a bug report is your best hope to get a quick solution.

5

Prior to file a bug report I searched for an existing one and I did find it using the keyword “hermosa”.

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=718760 leads to https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=717397

It seems the problem is the /dev/snd’s permissions and using the command

#chgrp users -R /dev/snd

and rebooting solves the problem.

Thank you again oldcpu,

Pancho

6

Well done in finding the solution. For certain I would not have found the solution without searching bugzilla, which is something that is very time consuming, and I typically do ONLY for bugs that I encounter on my PCs.

They do appear to have fixed this for future openSUSE versions, but I can’t tell if the bug is openSUSE specific or also applicable to other GNU/Linux versions.