Hey there everyone. First off, let me thank you for reading this post. Any comments, suggestions, or recommendations are greatly appreciated.

At my office we have a brand new Dell D830 with Vista on one partition and Fedora C6 on the other. The reason why we didn't go with C7 is because of installation issues that we were having with finding the DVD-ROM. C6 installed perfectly and everything is working great, except for our sound card. At first we were finding that there was no sound coming out of the speakers but when I used my headphones I received sound if I had the correct sound output selected. (QUESTION: Is this because I was using the on board sound and not the Sigmatel sound card?) Also in the options for sound all we received was (pardon my vague memory) something to the extend of "Open Sound ..." and "HD ALSA ..." well, Sigmatel was mentioned once as an "Open Sound ...".

Before I troubleshot the problem, I went ahead and did a package update of the OS. New kernel, new libs, and so forth. Once I rebooted (selecting new kernel from boot menu), there is now no sound cards available. I have googled this issue a couple times and have found few resources to sound card issues, but none that point me in the right direction. I do not know where to begin after this update. And my boss is counting on me.(QUESTION: What steps should I take to enable my Sigmatel sound card?)

Thanks for your time. I really appreciate it.

Taj Sandhu
Network Operations Technician

bump :-(


Anyone have any suggestions on getting the sound card to work? When I do I get no sound cards available. Any more information required, please let me know.

Hi everyone. Does anyone know how I could go about this issue? I am really desperate for some assistance.

Hi,

I wonder if you manage to solve your problem? If you had, then I am happy for you, if you have not, then I can only offer my own experience into this problem.

Just some background, I recent acquired Dell Vostro 1400 laptop that comes with Sigmatel 9228 sound chip (which is a variant of your sound chip). Everything looks good, I can run alsaconf and alsamixer, both showing the sound card detected and seems to be working. But, no sound, absolutely no sound at all!

After doing many searches over the net, I realized, it seems, we need to pass additional module parameters when loading the driver (the ALSA module). Unfortunately, there don't seem to have a consistent setup, where it will work for all situations. Try Google search for "Dell Vostro Linux no sound", you will see what I mean.

Basically, the parameters you need to setup is model and probe_mask. You need to set into your modprobe.conf or the sound setup for modprobe in /etc/ directory. For my case, the file is /etc/modprobe.d/sound

I basically added:

After adding this line into /etc/modprobe.d/sound, I manage to get my sound card working, and I got sound on my my headphones. However, the laptop stereo speakers are not working (which until now, I still don't understand why...).

Sorry can't help much, try search for "Sigmatel Linux no sound" via Google, you may find more suggestions in the net that may solve your problem.

Oh, I am using Slackware 12, but I believe the setup for modprobe should be similar.

Good luck!

ps: I suggest, if possible, enable the debug mode for ALSA, and frequently check the dmesg out for possible clue to solve your problem.

If it's any consolation, I have a Dell D830, and the sound has worked perfectly for the past couple of weeks... and did so until I installed a new 2Gig memory stick. I ordered my laptop with only 512 Mb since it was cheaper to buy a stick of memory elsewhere than have it installed at Dell... so it may have something to do with how much memory you have.

I run Slackware 12, and as I mentioned before, the sound worked fine until a couple days ago. I've also been booting various live cds based on different distros, and I don't think I've had the sound work once. I'm posting from Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon tribe 5 x86_64 right now, and although it detects A sound card, it appears to be the wrong one. No sound from my speakers.

I'll post back if I determine anything else. I'll take the new memory out of my computer today and report back if there's any change.

I am not sure about the amount of RAM. My laptop has 2G RAM.

I believe it has something to do with the kernel.

EDIT:

If you need to find out available models, check the ALSA-Configuration.txt in your kernel source: Documentation/sound/alsa/

Found this link: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HdaIntelSoundHowto (Maybe helpful)

Okay, I'm back now.

I took the new stick of RAM out yesterday... and immediately got sound back. RAM in... no sound. I'm going to try compiling 2.6.22.6 tonight, and see if that gives me sound back with all my memory in. I'm hoping that I don't have to wait for 2.6.23 for it.

Very interesting...

Well, compiling a default 2.6.22.6 didn't fix it... I'll try again with 2.6.23-rc5 and see what happens.

I manage to find a solution:

This is the best "First Step" in getting new hardware support for audio. The alsa development goes at a different pace than the kernel, and there will often be upwards of 60 patches in alsa that haven't made it to the kernel yet (actually, I think 1.0.15rc1 has upwards of 90, 60 just in the hda-intel driver code).

If you continue having issues, even if you need to add a "model=<model>" line to the modprobe.conf files, please run this script and post the link it generates. This will help us alsa developers get your system supported "out of the box".

Tobin

Hey, thanks for the script. I got the link: http://pastebin.ca/679066

Where exactly I am suppose to post this link?

Hmm... I'm just usually hesitant to mess with what Pat V. has done with my system, and the alsa drivers are all built in to the kernel... If 2.6.23rc5 doesn't fix it for me, I'll try compiling the ALSA rc.

This is the correct location. I can now access it and go forward. Here is a patch for you to try. It is against alsa-driver-1.0.15rc1. It adds specific support for your system, so after installing it, make sure you remove any "model=" references from your modprobe config files.

To apply the patch:
tajsandhu & Spinlock: Post the output from the above script for your machines, and I can add them as well.

Well, after some major kernel config overhaul, I managed to get 2.6.23-rc5 compiled and running... and I have sound again.
Just for the sake of completeness, though...
http://pastebin.ca/680110