No sound over hdmi

English Hardware
#1

I have a Jetway “NVIDIA MCP7A-ION mini-itx for ATOM processor” board (whatever that may mean :slight_smile: http://www.jetwaycomputer.com/spec/NC63-LF.pdf with HDMI but no SPDIF.

How should I be able to produce some sound over HDMI?

Here are my findings so far:

>aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

In Gnome Control Center - Sound Preferences:

  • Tab hardware: “Internal Audion - 1 Output - Digital Stereo (HDMI) Output”
  • Tab Output: “Internal Audio Digital Stereo (HDMI) - Stereo”

In Alsamixer:

  • Card: PulseAudio
  • Chip: PulseAudio
  • Select Sound Card: Default - volume settings are OK
  • Select Sound Card: HDA Nvidia - S/PDIF volume settings not muted, but volume is 00 (which I can’t modify).

Can anybody help me to get the correct settings?

Ultimately, I would like to install XBMC and to use this computer as a media box. Will I only have stereo HDMI output, or will I be able to change this somewhere?

Tx for your support

Ivan

#2

**I found this advice in another forum…

This will get you sound/passthrough over HDMI:**
(haven’t tested coax or optical)

**In KDE do a Alt-F2 and type:

**

kdesu kwrite /etc/asoundrc.conf

Paste the following into that new file and save it:

pcm.dmixer {
type dmix
ipc_key 1024
ipc_key_add_uid false
ipc_perm 0660
slave {
pcm "hw:0,3"
rate 48000
channels 2
period_time 0
period_size 1024
buffer_time 0
buffer_size 4096
}
}
 
pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm "dmixer"
}

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**Open up another terminal (this will enable Youtube, and XBMC system sounds):

**Type in: alsamixer

Use F6 to select the sound card output. Make sure that IEC958 is unmuted by pressing the letter “m” without quotes. This is a toggle and will switch between being muted and not.

Restart your PC and see if this might help. This is what it said to try for Ubuntu…

Thank You,

#3

A different approach from what jdmcdaniel3 recommended is to take a look at conram’s post in this thread: Sound to multiple output devices with pulse? (post #20), … if we apply his solution to your setup, then edit the /etc/pulse/default.pa file, with this addition:


### Load HDMI device
load-module module-alsa-sink device=hw:1,3
load-module module-combine sink_name=combined
set-default-sink combined

Also install the application pavucontrol and when playing a multimedia application for the first time run ‘pavucontrol’ also.

also note conram has pulse audio device chooser installed and under configure local sound server has enabled simultaneous output.

#4

Tx for your reply. I’ll check them out tomorrow.

Any other hints?

#5

I’ve tried every combination of “device=hw:1,3” (such as 1,0 - 0,1 - 0,0 - …) but each time when I open pavucontrol I get a “connection refused” error.

Ivan

#6

How about:


### Load HDMI device
load-module module-alsa-sink device=hw:0,3
load-module module-combine sink_name=combined
set-default-sink combined
#7

To the op, do you have a file called .asound.conf in /etc.
Please post the entire result of aplay -l and aplay -L

#8

Tx for your help so far. I think I’ve found the cause of my problem, but not yet a fully satisfied solution…

The kernel on this PC is optimized for XEN virtual servers. So when I boot, I have the option to boot into the “normal” kernel or a “XEN” kernel. So far, I’ve always used the XEN kernel.

When I switch to the normal kernel, I am able to install the proprietary NVIDIA drivers and I have sound over HDMI by adding the following to /etc/pulse/default-pa


### Load HDMI device
load-module module-alsa-sink device=hw:0,3
load-module module-combine sink_name=combined
set-default-sink combined

This is a backup PC to backup all data, but it is also used as a backup destination for our primary server which runs several XEN virtual images. Besides that it is being used as a backup media, I keep it in place in case our primary server breaks down so I can easily switch the XEN virtual images to this PC and start working from this PC. Hence, that I have installed a XEN kernel and boot into that kernel. Because 99% of the time, the PC is not doing anything, I was thinking of adding XBMC to it.

Now my question … will I still be able to boot into the XEN kernel, install XBMC and make use of HDMI and its sound? Another solution would be to install everything on the normal kernel, and whenever there is an issue with our primary server, reboot this backup PC with the XEN kernel. At that time, I won’t be able to use XBMC but that would only be in “emergency” cases.

Ivan

#9

Don’t think this that I am driving you away. With XBMC, you will find lots of good howtos/answers in the XBMC forum.