Since I’ve installed 11.1, there has been a small annoyance with how the volume works.
I can’t hear any volume below 70-75% (indicated on the OSD). When pressing the volume up and down buttons it only gives a useable working range between 75% and 100% which is annoying as the incremental steps in volume are too great.
Googling around I’ve found other users with similar issues on Ubuntu a nd different hardware so it doesn’t seem distro or hardware specific.
See: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/319971
[ubuntu] Sound only works when volume > 50% - Ubuntu Forums](http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6694287#post6694287)
Anyone else here experiencing this and should i file a bug report for this?
Yast - Hardware - Sound - Adjust Volume
Move the slider to about the 75% position. If not already.
And check kmix mixer sliders. Click on kmix then on the button ‘Mixer’
http://thumbnails13.imagebam.com/3932/35956739319831.gif](http://www.imagebam.com/image/35956739319831/)
Yep, sorry I should have said. I’ve already checked all sliders and been through the getting audio to work article. Even with all sliders at 100%, the volume becomes inaudible below 70%.
As mentioned earlier, it seems to be a problem in other distros and other brands of laptop too. Not sure if it’s soundcard related, or the driver for the soundcard.
Does your volume reduce / increase proportionally across the whole range of 0% - 100%? If so then we can start looking at what is different wrt hardware drivers etc.
Mine is showing:
Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
Subsystem: Lenovo ThinkPad T61
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
Memory at fe100000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [60] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Count=1/1 Enable-
Capabilities: [70] Express Root Complex Integrated Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel <?>
Capabilities: [130] Root Complex Link <?>
Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel
Works perfectly.[/size]
What command did you execute to get that output?
Here’s my output
Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
Subsystem: Lenovo ThinkPad T60/R60 series
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
Memory at ee240000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [60] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Count=1/1 Enable-
Capabilities: [70] Express Root Complex Integrated Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel <?>
Capabilities: [130] Root Complex Link <?>
Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel
You can also see my output from /usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh here.
cat /etc/modprobe.d/sound
options snd slots=snd-hda-intel
# u1Nb.pC0kUcwQ4PA:ThinkPad T60/R60 series
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [Intel ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
HDA Intel at 0xee240000 irq 17
rpm -qa | grep alsa
alsa-utils-1.0.18-6.4
alsa-1.0.18-8.7
alsa-plugins-pulse-1.0.18-6.12
alsa-plugins-1.0.18-6.12
alsa-oss-1.0.17-1.37
[/size]
cat /etc/modprobe.d/sound
options snd slots=snd-hda-intel
u1Nb.iJWhLrosxI5:ThinkPad T61
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [Intel ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
HDA Intel at 0xfe100000 irq 17
rpm -qa | grep alsa
alsa-utils-1.0.18-6.4
alsa-plugins-1.0.18-6.12
alsa-1.0.18-8.7
alsa-plugins-pulse-1.0.18-6.12
alsa-oss-1.0.17-1.37
Well there is nothing different about our configurations apart from the slight difference in the audio controller. All drivers, and software look the same.
There must a setting somewhere where the volume increments along with the upper and lower limits are set. Needle in hey stack springs to mind 
