problem with sound on HP laptop

cmbondi · 08-22-2005, 11:46 PM

I have an HP Pavillion ZV5000 series notebook and I am having trouble with the sound, I am getting sound but it it broken up and skips and is basically garbled. I tried playing and MP3 file and it was very messed up. I ran alsaconf and it detected the following: ATI IXP150 AC97 Audio. I let it setup and received no errors but the sound is garbled.
Any ideas?
thnx
Colin

linux-rulz · 08-23-2005, 12:17 AM

Have you thought about trying another distro (live distro if you don't want to reinstall) to see if it is a MEPIS specific issue? It might help. Try Knoppix, and also try a non-Debian derivative (such as SUSE Live DVD or Mandrake Move). It might be a problem with Debian itself but not with non-Debian derived systems. If that doesn't work, then it might be a problem with ALSA and you should submit the full card info to the ALSA developers.

It is always good to narrow down a problem

cmbondi · 08-23-2005, 12:36 AM

I actually had Kubuntu running on this machine recently and the sound worked fine with it.......

linux-rulz · 08-23-2005, 12:43 AM

That suggests this is a problem with MEPIS itself, and that it does not even affect Debian....unless of course the Ubuntu devs have made a fix and it hasn't been submitted upstream yet, or accepted.

I'd say contact someone on the MEPIS irc....I have never spent much time with MEPIS and know little about it. Or on their mailing lists if they have any.

lefty.crupps · 08-23-2005, 11:14 AM

try changing from ALSA to OSS. Not ideal, but it has helped me in the past. Or install a new kernel and all of the ALSA-kernel modules to accompany it. (Note, when installing a new kernel it should be the MEPIS-specific kernel and you'll need to update your boot/grub/menu.list (or similar) file to point at the new kernel)

let us know how you fixed it (when you do) for the People of the Future!

cmbondi · 08-23-2005, 02:56 PM

thanks for the info, unfortunately I am quite a newbie, I've never been able to get an install of linux stable enough to use and learn but I'm trying. I'm not sure what OSS is or how to install a new kernel........

cmbondi · 08-23-2005, 02:59 PM

Oh, based on another suggestion, I disabled ACPI support at boot and the problem went away so something is happening with ACPI that is messing up sound. Oh course that just replaces one problemw with another because since this is a laptop I need ACPI for power management functions but it is a clue to the cause of the problem anyway..........

linux-rulz · 08-23-2005, 03:10 PM

Have you tried APM (Advanced Power Management).

Also, take a look at the Linux Laptop Site. They might have some good info specific to your laptop. Just search for your model. I'd suggest checking out this site before making any more changes.

sermat · 08-23-2005, 06:31 PM

Hi all! Just to add to this topic. I also have "scratchy and noisy" sound on several computers running Mepis, But on these same computers, another Linux Distro produces crystal clear sound. So the problem is definately with Mepis !!! But I have not found anybody who has a a description of this problem and how to fix it.
sermat.

linux-rulz · 08-23-2005, 10:45 PM

Open KMIX and play around with the volume changers to see if you can make the sound go away. Also use xmms or something like that to see if your normal volume still works.