sound is very low after upgrading from Asus MN2N to Z97-P MB

English Multimedia
1

opensuse 13.1 x86_64

after upgrading with yast sound card manager

  • i deleted the old graphical cards “nvidia”
  • i set the 2 cards with yas sound manager choosing “speed” setting
  • i activated pulseaudio for the 2 intel cards (0 and 1)
  • i set as primary the card 1

card 0 is for spdif
card 1 is a Realtek 7.1 channel

for the 2 ones sd -hda-intel driver is used

strangely with lspci i get this
Audio device: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio Controller (rev 06)

in pavu control the level is set to 153 %
in kmix the level is set to 100 %
in yast sound manager > volume the master is set to 100 %

i reboot several time

perhaps we need to delete the pulseaudio settings and to recreate the pulseaudio settings
how to ask for pulseaudio to do this ?

thanks

2

In your home in ~/.config/pulse

3

i deleted ~/config/pulse then same result no progress after rebooting.

4

i connected the speakers of my screen instead of my current speakers then no problem .

an hypothesis : my current speakers are not electrically compliant with the analog output of the MB audio device . there is a pb of voltage (Volt) , intensity (Ampère) and impedance (Ohm)

5

the audio chipset is an ALC891 codec backed by a TI R4580 amplifier .

see here

https://techreport.com/review/28036/asus-z97-p-motherboard-reviewed

6

Sometimes one can find complexity in configuring sound when both devices (sound card 0 and card 1) use the same alsa hda-intel audio driver.

From what I understand, you are confident after each boot the correct sound device is chosen (where I note not all users experience that - some need to custom tune their PC’s 50-sound.conf file when both cards use the same driver). And you have pavucontrol, kmix, and yast maxed out for sound.

When you say the sound level is very low … how low is very low ? ie room conversation level? whisper level ? or you need to hold your ear to the speaker to hear level ?

Could you re-explain this ? I think you are saying external speakers play ok … but the laptop speakers do not yield good sound ? That suggests to me that maybe sound is being sent to the wrong sound card (?) and you are hearing cross talk (for the low levels of sound ? ) < not sure >

Please can you run this diagnostic script as a regular user in a terminal/konsole with laptop connected to the internet:


/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh

select the SHARE/UPLOAD option and when the script completes, inside the terminal will be a web address for you to share. Please post that web address here.

This will allow us to better view the audio configuration of your laptop, and maybe that will give us some hints.

7

When you say the sound level is very low … how low is very low ? ie room conversation level? whisper level ? or you need to hold your ear to the speaker to hear level ?

whisper level

Could you re-explain this ? I think you are saying external speakers play ok … but the laptop speakers do not yield good sound ?

i currently 2 external speakers . with these ones sound is very low

in my monitor there are 2 internal speakers . with these ones with same plug sound is normal .

Your ALSA information is located at http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=5cbf968c3ec3058e2048b2f3283184820f4845df

8

According to that you have three instances of an audio driver loaded:


!!Loaded ALSA modules
!!-------------------

snd_hda_intel
snd_hda_intel
snd_usb_audio

where ‘snd_hda_intel’ is associated with your HDMI audio (probably your Monitor speakers) and the second ‘snd_hda_intel’ is associated with your laptop/external speakers. The 3rd ‘snd_usb_audio’ appears to be associated with a USB microphone (it shows up in arecord).

I note the 2 speaker devices show up in the aplay, which is card-0 (HDMI - probably monitor speakers) and card-1 (laptop/external speakers) :



!!Aplay/Arecord output
!!--------------------

APLAY

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: MID [HDA Intel MID], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC887-VD Analog [ALC887-VD Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 1: ALC887-VD Digital [ALC887-VD Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Note your HDMI is card-0. By default, sound will go to card-0 (your monitor speakers) . Hence unless you go to pavucontrol, and for each and every application, point that application to card-1, you will hear no sound in your laptop/external speakers (which are card-1). You could go to the application ‘pavucontrol’ and set that up for every application.

Note that also, your HDMI device is hw:0,3.

Your laptop speaker (likely analog) is hw:1,0.

Try the following and advise if it gives any sound in your laptop or external speakers :


pasuspender -- aplay -D hw:1,0 -vv /usr/share/sounds/alsa/test.wav

Please note syntax is important. I have a single space in some very specific locations. Copy and paste that if you can. Please report here any errors exactly how they appear.

Does that give any sound ? What I am attempting to do there is suspend (temporary) pulse audio with the app ‘pasuspender’ and then force the application aplay to push the sound of the file ‘test.wav’ through the device hw:1,0 which I believe to be your laptop (or external) speakers - but not to your Monitor speakers.

Unfortunately even thou you changed sound cards in yast, it has a bug and for audio devices that use the same driver (where your laptop’s HDMI and analog sound use different instances of the same driver) yast fails to work properly.

I can give you an edit to fix this problem.

Could you also post here the content of your laptop’s /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf file ? I may have an edit to it, so to permanently make your laptop speakers card-0 and your HDMI speakers card-1. But I need to see that file first, so that I have a baseline to apply the edits.

9

  1. this not a laptop but a PC

  2. i don’t use any hdmi . my monitor is a dvi one

  3. i use only analog ouput of the sound chip set of the MB (lime plug)

i use alsamixer it offers a choice :

0 HDA Intel MID
1 HDA Intel PCH
2 USB device <- micro of my usb webcam

for card 0

Carte: HDA Intel MID
Puce: Intel Haswell HDMI
Vue: F3:[Lecture] F4: Capture F5: Tout
Contrôle: S/PDIF

for card 1

Carte: HDA Intel PCH
Puce: Realtek ALC887-VD
Vue: F3:[Lecture] F4: Capture F5: Tout
Contrôle: S/PDIF [Fermé]

  1. i execute
    pasuspender – aplay -D hw:1,0 -vv /usr/share/sounds/alsa/test.wav

with external speaker same result : very low level

  1. contents of 50-sound.conf

options snd slots=snd-hda-intel,snd-hda-intel

3hqH.38j4whyeBxF:Intel Corporation

alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel

u1Nb.SVBsy0mp657:Intel Corporation

alias snd-card-1 snd-hda-intel

10

Thanks. I confess I am struggling to understand your configuration.

So I now understand, this is a desktop. You are only using the analog output. If you take the analogue output, and somehow (?) plug it in to an analog in of your monitor (where your monitor also has a built in set of speakers) then the sound works fine here.

But if you instead plug your external speakers into the desktop computer’s analog output , you get next to no sound (ie just a whisper) ?

This gets back to your original suspicion then, that this is specifically related to these speakers. And to the current behaviour and / or specification of these speakers.

Do these speakers work nominally with any other computer ? Do the speakers work with any other operating system on this same computer ? What is the brand/make of these speakers ? Is there an amplifier between the computer and these speakers ?

Are you 100% certain you plugged the external speakers into the correct analogue output on your PC ?

11

So I now understand, this is a desktop. You are only using the analog output. If you take the analogue output, and somehow (?) plug it in to an analog in of your monitor (where your monitor also has a built in set of speakers) then the sound works fine here.

But if you instead plug your external speakers into the desktop computer’s analog output , you get next to no sound (ie just a whisper) ?

This gets back to your original suspicion then, that this is specifically related to these speakers. And to the current behaviour and / or specification of these speakers.

yes for all

Do these speakers work nominally with any other computer ?

yes with the previous Asus M2N MB

Do the speakers work with any other operating system on this same computer ?

i don’t have any other os on my pc

What is the brand/make of these speakers ?

polk audio

Is there an amplifier between the computer and these speakers ?

no

Are you 100% certain you plugged the external speakers into the correct analogue output on your PC ?

yes this is the same type of sound device and color standard for the 3 plugs as the previous Asus M2N MB : pink (micro) , lime (2 channels speakers) , blue (line in)

i must add this :

with the previous M2N MB this was the contrary : sound with external speakers was good and sound with monitor internal speakers was very low

thanks

12

Since the ‘whispering’ affect occurred, have you tested the polk audio speakers with any other device ? ie could this be a recent failure in the “polk audio” speakers ?

One wild speculative investigative idea … do these speakers have their own power source ? If so, could this be an electrical grounding issue ? If this is a 2-pronged plug, and you reverse the polk audio speaker plug 180-deg, does the same problem occur ?

13

do these speakers have their own power source ?

no

If this is a 2-pronged plug, and you reverse the polk audio speaker plug 180-deg, does the same problem occur ?

i don’t understand it is a 2 channels jack plug (in one plug there is 2 channels)

14

I meant a 2 pronged electrical power plug (if the speakers had their own power source … ie they need to be plugged in to an electrical power outlet).

But you claim the speakers do not have their own power source ?? Do they run on battery ? Do the speakers use the voltage inside the audio cable for power ?

15

Do they run on battery ?

no

Do the speakers use the voltage inside the audio cable for power ?

yes

16

Any answer to this ?

17

Since the ‘whispering’ affect occurred, have you tested the polk audio speakers with any other device ?

i don’t have any other device

18

Having read this thread I am wondering if either it’s an electrical compatibility (mismatched impedance) issue or the sound out on the motherboard is faulty. Have you got another spare pair of speakers available to test the board (or headphones)? Also do you have an audio jack at the front of your pc (mine does) so you can test this against the rear?

19

i connect the external speakers to the front panel of the pc then sound level is good !
i connect the external speakers to the rear panel of the pc then sound level is bad

20

Maybe then its the computer ? Do you have any other speaker device you can connect to the front and rear panels to see if they have the same behaviour ?