Sound problems on 11.1 (HDA Intel Card)

user · December 30, 2008, 9:54am

I’ve been working on getting sound issues corrected for the past couple days and I’m not entirely sure that I haven’t gotten myself into a worse position than I started in.

Right now I have sound, but I’m pretty sure that the channels are incorrectly assigned or something. The only way to adjust volume is to open alsamixer and adjust Master or adjust front. PCM is completely ignored.

I’ve attempted following the following two tutorials:

SDB:Intel-HDA sound problems - openSUSE
SDB:AudioTroubleshooting - openSUSE

Here’s some info regarding my setup:

 | $ cat /proc/asound/version
 | Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.18a.
 | Compiled on Dec 28 2008 for kernel 2.6.27.7-9-default (SMP).

 | $cat /proc/asound/modules
 | 0 snd_hda_intel

 | $ cat /proc/asound/cards
 |  0 [Intel          ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
 |                       HDA Intel at 0xf4800000 irq 21

Contents of /etc/modprobe.d/sound:
| options snd slots=snd-hda-intel
| # u1Nb.zXCXLTejE18:82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller
| alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel

My Alsa information can be found here:
http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=7d803161cb8a41ac6aa1cd57183626f845e49b9f

Additional info here:
tsalsa.txt - nopaste.com (beta)

Any direction would be greatly appreciated.

oldcpu · December 30, 2008, 12:31pm

Other than your volume control and mixer , what other issues?

I have seen the options in a mixer vary, with different options depending on the “model” assignment in the /etc/modprobe.d/sound file.

OK, … thats a good start.

Thanks for that.

and for that. Can you also provide the output of:rpm -qa | grep alsa
rpm -qa | grep pulse
rpm -q libasound2

Are you a gnome? KDE3 ? or KDE4 user ?

oldcpu · December 30, 2008, 12:41pm

Before I forget to mention, I am going on vacation in a day, and I’ll be on holiday for 2.5 weeks. While I will have internet access when on vacation, there may be days in between my replies to posts.

Now reference your /etc/modprobe.d/sound, we could try to see if we can help your mixer settings, based upon an assumption that alsa autoprobe was not entirely successful in picking the optimal setting. I note this list of options for the ALC268 from the 1.0.18a ALSA-Configuration.txt file:

	ALC267/268
	  quanta-il1	Quanta IL1 mini-notebook
	  3stack	3-stack model
	  toshiba	Toshiba A205
	  acer		Acer laptops
	  acer-dmic	Acer laptops with digital-mic
	  acer-aspire	Acer Aspire One
	  dell		Dell OEM laptops (Vostro 1200)
	  zepto		Zepto laptops
	  test		for testing/debugging purpose, almost all controls can
			adjusted.  Appearing only when compiled with
			$CONFIG_SND_DEBUG=y
	  auto		auto-config reading BIOS (default)

So, based on that list of model options, can you please change the /etc/modprobe.d/sound file to:

options snd slots=snd-hda-intel
options snd-hda-intel model=auto
# u1Nb.zXCXLTejE18:82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel

save the change, and restart your sound with: su -c ‘rcalsasound restart’ enter your root password when prompted, then restart your mixer, and test your sound.

If that does not give you a superior setting, then in that /etc/modprobe.d/sound file, replace “auto” with “acer” and try again (restart alsa, restart your mixer, test settings). Try each of those model options, one at a time, until you find the one that works the best.

user · December 30, 2008, 7:06pm

Ok, making the changes to /etc/modprobe.d/sound helped significantly. A couple of problems persist. While I can now adjust the volume without jumping through hoops, and am actually getting better sound, the volume settings aren’t being respected consistently. For example, when I make a recording using krecord then play it back, the playback ignores the volume settings. The same goes for system sounds. Also, it seems like only one program can access the playback function of the sound card at a time, so that if I have a YouTube video open, and try to play the recording from krecord, I get an error even if the video isn’t playing.

I’m using KDE4.

 | $ rpm -qa | grep pulse
 | libpulse0-0.9.12-9.5
 | alsa-plugins-pulse-1.0.18-6.13
 | libpulse-browse0-0.9.12-9.5
 | pulseaudio-utils-0.9.12-9.5
 | pulseaudio-module-x11-0.9.12-9.5
 | pulseaudio-module-lirc-0.9.12-9.5
 | pulseaudio-esound-compat-0.9.12-9.5
 | libpulse-mainloop-glib0-0.9.12-9.5
 | pulseaudio-0.9.12-9.5
 | pulseaudio-module-zeroconf-0.9.12-9.5
 | pulseaudio-module-jack-0.9.12-9.5
 | libpulsecore4-0.9.12-9.5
 | libxine1-pulse-1.1.15-20.8

 | $ rpm -q libasound2
 | libasound2-1.0.18.git20081212-1.1

Thanks for the help.

oldcpu · December 30, 2008, 7:40pm

Great! What setting did you find worked the best?

You will likley need to check the PCM levels in your mixer for the launchy of every app.

reference playback, try switching the output audio mode of your multimedia players to “alsa” (such that you will be using the alsa api).

user · December 31, 2008, 7:32am

Using the model=auto setting yielded the best results. model=acer worked marginally well, but I couldn’t get as much power out of my speakers using that setting without getting some serious white noise along with it.

How do I go about checking the PCM level of an app’s launchy?

oldcpu · December 31, 2008, 7:50am

After the app is launched, open your desktop’s mixer and check its PCM settings there.

oldcpu · December 31, 2008, 7:51am

Thanks for that tidbit! Its useful to know.

sopir744 · October 22, 2009, 8:11pm

Hello…

I m using KDE 4, opensuse 11.1. HDA-intel sound card.

Why is everytime I m using skype, there will be no sound on other sound appl, such as amarok, youtube. I have to do “rcalsasound restart” to make it work and quit from talking on skype ?

Is there a way to make it work together?

Thanks.

Dimas

oldcpu · October 22, 2009, 10:34pm

This is very likely a Skype specific issue, or very much related to Skype.

Posting THAT question in a thread with the Title: “Sound problems on 11.1 (HDA Intel Card)” is almost a certain way to ensure the people who might be able to help you will NOT see the question. Its FAR BETTER to start a new thread with an appropriate title that summarizes the problem far more specifically.

IMHO if you have to send “rcalsasound restart” its because some other application is using the audio device and so Skype can not get access. However I do NOT use Skype so I can not offer much more than that wild speculation.

I recommend you start a new thread to get the support you want.