Hi there,

I have an ECS A530 laptop (which sucks, don't buy it) and its Ali 5451 sound card seems to work fine with ALSA, except for the annoying fact that it is always either at maximum level or mute...

I'm a Linux newbie so I can't really describe much, but the problem I notice is this: the only sound control that works is PCM, but it's totally binary...either the sound is off or is at maximum, no matter where the sound control is. (what is PCM, by the way?)

Can anyone please help me configure this so that the sound controls work normally?

Thanks,

Eduardo

Does dmesg report any errors with ALSA? You can use lspci to see if your hardware is properly recognized, and you can use lsmod to see what modules are loaded. It might be worth trying to run alsaconf (as root) to (re?)configure your sound card.

Also, you could recompile your kernel with the proper support for your sound card. That may seem like allot of work, but it would be a good learning experience if you have never recompiled a kernel before.

PCM = Pulse Code Modulation = the thing that you usually want to be adjusting to change the volume of things like xmms and mplayer. PCM is merely the way that sounds are typically delivered to the sound card. It is used as shorthand here for "sounds that the CPU delivers to the sound card in digital format" as opposed to sounds that are delivered in analog format by CD-R* drives using the 4-wire connector.

Hey dx0r515t,

running alsamixer told me all items were off...so I ran alsaconf and then alsactl store, and after a reboot everything now works perfectly...thanks!