Hi,

I'm pretty new to linux, so there could be a really simple solution to my problem, but I can't find it. My motherboard (Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000) has on board surround sound (I think the chip is a Realtek ALC655), but only 3 jacks - the mic jack is used for Center/Sub and Line in is used for the rear speakers.

Through Googling I've found this solution
alsa.opensrc.org/AlsaTips
under the heading "Enabling 5+1 outputs on cards with line-out, mic-in and line-in jacks".

Unfortunately the options Mic As Center/LFE and Line-In As Surround don't appear in the list of things I can change in ALSA.

This makes me think I have to do something with my hardware configuration to get that working.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Having read the "Before you post" thread, here is some info... Don't know how much of it will be of any use:

/sbin/lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P PCI to AGP Controller (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev c2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV43 [GeForce 6600/GeForce 6600 GT] (rev a2)
02:04.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88w8335 [Libertas] 802.11b/g Wireless (rev 03)
02:05.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)
02:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82562EZ 10/100 Ethernet Controller (rev 02)

kernel version
2.6.13-15-smp

Distro:
SuSE 10.0 (Novell)

Thanks.

Since nvidia is proprietary, SuSE only supplies the default nv kernel module. That will give you stero, but not surround sound.

You have to start YaST, go to Software updates. When the list is presented to you, scrool down the list until you find the nvidia driver update. For SuSE up to 9.3, it installs the module, all you have to do is load the module via modprobe. For SuSE 10.X, you will have to compile the module (instructions can be found at the nvidia website).

Once it's compiled, modprobe nvidia should load the module and give you surround sound.

I'm stll searching for a way to increase the rear speaker volume. The sound is there, but not as loud as I'd like it to be.

Wow! That was a quicker response than I expected!

Sorry to be really dumb, but I don't know what to download. I can't see anything nVidia related in the list of things to download. Is there a link you can provide to the thing I need to download and compile?

Thanks

Do not use the nvidia driver. It seems that bigrigdriver skim your post and thought it was a nvidia problem. It is a problem with each motherboard manufacture using different registers when handling this sound chip. Try running 'alsamixer -V all'. This will show everything than what the defaults will show you. I suggest posting what amixer prints out, so we can get an idea what you are looking at.

Here's my amixer output:

Simple mixer control 'Master',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Mono:
Front Left: Playback 31 [100%] [on]
Front Right: Playback 31 [100%] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Master Mono',0
Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Mono: Playback 23 [74%] [on]
Simple mixer control 'PCM',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Mono:
Front Left: Playback 25 [81%] [on]
Front Right: Playback 25 [81%] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Surround',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Mono:
Front Left: Playback 27 [87%] [on]
Front Right: Playback 27 [87%] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Surround Jack Mode',0
Capabilities: enum
Items: 'Shared' 'Independent'
Item0: 'Shared'
Simple mixer control 'Center',0
Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Mono: Playback 31 [100%] [on]
Simple mixer control 'LFE',0
Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Mono: Playback 31 [100%] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Line',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch cswitch-joined cswitch-ex clusive
Capture exclusive group: 0
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Front Left: Playback 21 [68%] [off] Capture [off]
Front Right: Playback 21 [68%] [off] Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'CD',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch cswitch-joined cswitch-ex clusive
Capture exclusive group: 0
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Front Left: Playback 31 [100%] [on] Capture [off]
Front Right: Playback 31 [100%] [on] Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mic',0
Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch cswitch-jo ined cswitch-exclusive
Capture exclusive group: 0
Playback channels: Mono
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Mono: Playback 21 [68%] [off]
Front Left: Capture [on]
Front Right: Capture [on]
Simple mixer control 'Mic Boost (+20dB)',0
Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Mono: Playback [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mic Select',0
Capabilities: enum
Items: 'Mic1' 'Mic2'
Item0: 'Mic1'
Simple mixer control 'Video',0
Capabilities: cswitch cswitch-joined cswitch-exclusive
Capture exclusive group: 0
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Front Left: Capture [off]
Front Right: Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'Phone',0
Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch cswitch-jo ined cswitch-exclusive
Capture exclusive group: 0
Playback channels: Mono
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Mono: Playback 21 [68%] [on]
Front Left: Capture [off]
Front Right: Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',0
Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch cswitch-joined enum
Items: 'PCM' 'Analog In' 'IEC958 In'
Item0: 'PCM'
Simple mixer control 'IEC958 Playback AC97-SPSA',0
Capabilities: volume volume-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Capture channels: Mono
Limits: 0 - 3
Mono: 2 [67%]
Simple mixer control 'PC Speaker',0
Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Limits: Playback 0 - 15
Mono: Playback 10 [67%] [off]
Simple mixer control 'Aux',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch cswitch-joined cswitch-ex clusive
Capture exclusive group: 0
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Front Left: Playback 21 [68%] [on] Capture [off]
Front Right: Playback 21 [68%] [on] Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mono Output Select',0
Capabilities: enum
Items: 'Mix' 'Mic'
Item0: 'Mix'
Simple mixer control 'Capture',0
Capabilities: cvolume cswitch cswitch-joined
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 15
Front Left: Capture 12 [80%] [on]
Front Right: Capture 12 [80%] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Mix',0
Capabilities: cswitch cswitch-joined cswitch-exclusive
Capture exclusive group: 0
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Front Left: Capture [off]
Front Right: Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mix Mono',0
Capabilities: cswitch cswitch-joined cswitch-exclusive
Capture exclusive group: 0
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Front Left: Capture [off]
Front Right: Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'Channel Mode',0
Capabilities: enum
Items: '2ch' '4ch' '6ch'
Item0: '6ch'
Simple mixer control 'Duplicate Front',0
Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Mono: Playback [on]
Simple mixer control 'External Amplifier',0
Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Mono: Playback [off]

Thanks.