Sound card is installed, but doesn't seem to be active.

Fenster · 10-07-2004, 05:56 PM

I purchased a new laptop a few days ago, reformatted it and installed Fedora. Everything ran perfectly on it, until I patched my kernel up. It just...died...after I did this. It didn't even work when I booted to the older kernel.

Anyways, as near as I can tell from wading through various readouts, the card is installed, configured, but it doesn't seem to be active somehow.

Its a ATI, IXP 150 AC97, which is more or less bog-standard. Fedora Core 2, 2.6.8-1.521 kernel.

Now, I've only a vauge idea what's relative and what's not, so I can't really provide outputs from commands.

Google hasn't really turned up much regarding this, so I turn here, where I can find answers for nearly anything.

Lenin.Jello · 10-07-2004, 08:18 PM

the only thing i can recommend is to use the soundcard detection utility...
in terminal enter the following:

Code:

[user@localhost /]# su
Password: ********
[root@localhost /]# apt-get install system-config-soundcard
[root@localhost /]#system-config-soundcard

Fenster · 10-08-2004, 05:33 AM

Aye, I gave that a shot. It detects my soundcard, but when I click "Play test sound" it straightaway pops up asking if I heard the sound, without actually playing it.

So, ehh, past this, what else can I do?

pcweirdo · 10-08-2004, 06:30 AM

hi,

i'm running fedora core 2 and i think i had the same problem u do and its now fixed.

If you've got KDE (even if GNOME or something else is running at the moment), you should be able to run kmix. kmix lets you change the volume on a number of sliders. One of them should be digital or PCM or something, and when you crank that up your sound will play.

When my computer tries to play the test sound, nothing happens. But xmms is playing right now fine. The best way to test this kmix solution is to have music playing through xmms or something similar. Take care, though, because when I cranked up the PCM slider to full the volume was _VERY_ loud.

I hope that helps,
-pcweirdo.

Fenster · 10-08-2004, 08:44 AM

Okay, I appear to be missing a mixer. What now?

EDIT:

I compiled and reinstalled the Alsa drivers to see if anything changed. I got the following message after finishing installation:

WARNING!!! The mixer channels for the ALSA driver are muted by default!!!
**************************************************************************
You would use some ALSA or OSS mixer to set the appropriate volume.

Kmix doesn't detect any mixer installed on my machine.

Fenster · 10-08-2004, 01:42 PM

Well I had a good read around, esepcially this thread, but nothing I've come accross seems to cover this exact issue.

Depending on where I look, my sound card seems to be variously installed or not installed, but what they all seem to have in common is that I need a mixer, which I seem to have installed already.

Related outputs:

[root@localhost downloads]# /sbin/lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device cab3 (rev 05)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc PCI Bridge [IGP 340M]
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4347 (rev 01)
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4348 (rev 01)
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4345 (rev 01)
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc ATI SMBus (rev 18)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4349
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 434c
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4342
00:14.5 Multimedia audio controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP150 AC'97 Audio Controller
00:14.6 Modem: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 434d (rev 01)
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4437
02:06.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 02)
02:07.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
02:0a.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB21 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)

[root@localhost downloads]# cat /etc/modprobe.conf
alias eth0 8139too
alias snd-card-0 snd-atiixp
install snd-atiixp /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-atiixp && /usr/sbin/alsactl restore >/dev/null 2>&1 || :
remove snd-atiixp { /usr/sbin/alsactl store >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; }; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-atiixp
alias usb-controller1 ohci-hcd
alias usb-controller ehci-hcd

aplay /usr/share/sounds/generic.wav (as a test)

[root@localhost downloads]# aplay /usr/share/sounds/generic.wav
aplay: main:508: audio open error: No such device or address

[root@localhost downloads]# /usr/bin/aumix
aumix: error opening mixer

I hope these prove useful for someone.

mermxx · 10-08-2004, 03:39 PM

try using the alsamixer command
or if u r still having problems go to this link http://linuxreviews.org/man/alsamixer/
which will give u some help :-)
or even alsa-projects which u can google for :-)

Fenster · 10-09-2004, 05:36 AM

Alsamixer told me I didn't have a soundcard installed.

EDIT: I just gave up in the end. I popped in the disc and did a repair installation. Left me doing a bit more patching back up, but it got my sound working.

mermxx · 10-09-2004, 02:51 PM

well u got it working now so that`s the main thing and u can always help out people on the forum who have similar problems :-)