Realtek AC'97 sound card problem
 

Hi All,

I'm a brand new user of Linux and I'm having a little bit of trouble.

I installed SuSE 9.2 Pro on my laptop and is working great; except there is a hardware issue with my Realtek AC'97 sound card. When I go into Yast, there is a sound card noted except it says that it isn't working. I tested it out with some CDs and mp3s and true enough.. there was no sound.

I really really want to start using Linux on a full-time basis so please help me fix this problem!! Since I'm brand new then please use as much explicit detailed instruction as possible :)

Thanks!!

Do you have sound as root? Then add your user account to the audio group in /etc/group. Open it in your favourite editor, search the line audio and just append your username (the one you login with) behind) save and exit. You have to do that as root. Or in the command line: "usermod -G audio (username here)"

Have you unmuted all channels and put the volumes up in alsamixer. Open a terminal then type "alsamixer" without the quotes and hit enter.

Could you post the output of "lsmod" (again from the terminal)

I did all the things you said but still no sound...

here is the results you asked for:

Module Size Used by
snd_pcm_oss 57896 0
snd_mixer_oss 19200 2 snd_pcm_oss
snd_intel8x0 31268 1
snd_ac97_codec 69728 1 snd_intel8x0
snd_pcm 96776 3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer 24708 1 snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc 10248 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
snd 60164 6 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore 9056 2 snd
usbserial 26856 0
parport_pc 37824 1
lp 10536 0
parport 37960 2 parport_pc,lp
nvram 8328 0
ipt_TOS 2560 14
ip6t_LOG 6656 17
ip6t_limit 2432 17
ipt_LOG 6912 30
ipt_limit 2432 30
ipt_pkttype 1792 2
speedstep_lib 4228 0
freq_table 4356 0
thermal 17928 0
processor 25640 1 thermal
fan 5380 0
button 8464 0
battery 11396 0
ac 6404 0
af_packet 20872 0
ip6t_state 2048 22
ip6_conntrack 38404 1 ip6t_state
ipt_state 2176 28
ip6t_REJECT 7552 3
ipt_REJECT 6784 3
iptable_mangle 2944 1
iptable_filter 3072 1
edd 10012 0
ip6table_mangle 2688 0
ip_nat_ftp 5232 0
iptable_nat 23980 1 ip_nat_ftp
ip_conntrack_ftp 72624 1 ip_nat_ftp
ip_conntrack 43512 4 ipt_state,ip_nat_ftp,iptable_nat,ip_conntrack_ftp
ip_tables 17664 9 ipt_TOS,ipt_LOG,ipt_limit,ipt_pkttype,ipt_state,ipt_REJECT,iptable_mangle,iptable_filter,iptable_nat
ip6table_filter 2816 1
ip6_tables 18816 6 ip6t_LOG,ip6t_limit,ip6t_state,ip6t_REJECT,ip6table_mangle,ip6table_filter
ipv6 237312 15 ip6_conntrack,ip6t_REJECT
ds 17796 2
usbhid 40132 0
sis_agp 8068 1
agpgart 32168 1 sis_agp
ohci1394 31748 0
ieee1394 106168 1 ohci1394
joydev 9664 0
sg 35872 0
st 37404 0
sd_mod 16912 0
sr_mod 16292 0
scsi_mod 111052 4 sg,st,sd_mod,sr_mod
ide_cd 38176 1
cdrom 36508 2 sr_mod,ide_cd
yenta_socket 19840 1
pcmcia_core 66100 2 ds,yenta_socket
ehci_hcd 29188 0
ohci_hcd 20228 0
binfmt_misc 11272 1
evdev 8960 0
subfs 7552 1
nls_utf8 2176 1
ntfs 91888 1
dm_mod 54524 0
sis900 19204 0
usbcore 106724 6 usbserial,usbhid,ehci_hcd,ohci_hcd
reiserfs 242000 1

I have a working set of source rpms you could install. They are located here. Download the tarball, and (in a shell window) type "tar -jxvf alsa-src-rpms.tar.bz2", then rebuild them with "rpmbuild --rebuild alsa-driver-1.0.11-1.src.rpm". Install the resulting binary rpm, then follow the last two steps to build alsa-lib and alsa-utils (alsa-lib & alsa-lib-devel will both need to be installed before you can build alsa-utils). This will give you rpms based on the current release of alsa.

Let me know if you have problems. Good luck!