I just installed SAM Linux on my laptop, and I can't seem to get sound to work.

I'm using a Yamaha YMF-744B sound card, and its using the ymfpci sound driver.

The speakers make a REALLY LOUD high pitched "eeeeee" noise when the speaker volume is only a little above zero. It also seems to get worse when the laptop is slightly tilted...

Does anyone have any idea whats causing this?

If it helps, its a Toshiba Tecra 8100 laptop with a PIII 600 Mhz processor and 256 mb of ram. It's also using a Belkin Wireless PCMCIA card, which uses the atheros wireless drivers.

Thanks

Welcome to LQ.

Try running alsamixer and then reducing the PCM volume.

It seems the sound card or chip is picking up interference from other devices. You can try to mod the notebook by placing Faraday cage like material over the circuitry for sound. This is hard to do and may not have enough room. I suggest typing "alsamixer -V all" and adjust the controls. If adjusting the controls do not minimize or fix the problem, take out the optical drive and wireless card. If it is still there, run openSSH and turn off the LCD display. Then login from another computer to access the notebook computer and play sound. The hard drive or fan could be the problem.

There's a PCM and PCM2 setting. When I lower them though, the sound is really quiet.

I'll try alasamixer -V all, but doest that work when the driver is set to use the OSS driver? Or should I set it to use the ALSA driver first? They both had this problem.

I was afraid that it may be the wireless card that was causing it. I don't normally use a wireless card, but instead I usually use a Wireless Bridge with an ethernet connection.

The sound sounded like it was coming from the bottom right corner of the laptop, so it sounded like it was coming from the right speaker, but that could also mean it was coming from the CD drive. I wouldn't mind removing the CD drive for good, as it's not working very well. I don't think it's the CD drive though, because I was using Xubuntu on this laptop (with all the same hardware, wireless card included) last week, and I didn't have this problem.

Thanks a bunch Electro and J.W.

I used alsamixer, and now my sound is great, with no weird buzzing. I think it might've been because of line in or something like that.

Anyways, thanks. I can finally enjoy a speedy distro on my old laptop. SAM Linux is pretty darn good.

Congrats quadomatic on solving the problem and thanks for posting back with the update.

Have fun with Linux