LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] sound problems

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Dear slackers,
I have a SONY sound system with 5 external speakers and a subwoofer. However, I cannot make it work in Slackware 14.2. In the KDE Audio and Video Settings I have two options for the Hardware Setup:
1. Built-in Audio
2. GF119 HDMI Audio Controller.

As my sound system does not have a HDMI output, I guess it has to be controlled by the Built-in Audio. However, only the Front Left and Front Right speakers are recognised (appear in the KDE Audio and Video Settings -> Hardware Setup). The other 3 speakers and the subwoofer are silent during audio playback.

The play command from the console does not work at all. mplayer works, but only with the 2 recognised speakers.

Furthermore, if I put the Dual Stereo switch of the sound system to "on", sound disappears altogether.

I am currently at a loss. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Best regards,
Martin

Hello and hope we can get this working properly for you. I don't know how much help I can be since I have dropped back to an alsa-only usage in 14.2. I have problems with pulseaudio but it is my understanding that pulseaudio acts primarily as a manager and underneath that is still alsa, or at the very least still can be. Add to this I use simple bi-amped stereo with a third channel for subwoofer, so much is done externally as I Line-Out to an actual Receiver/Amplifier of just under 900 watts.

That said, it is my understanding that sound systems default to stereo and additional channels must be unmuted with alsamixer. Then they are available for pulseaudio to "manage".
Hope this helps.

Quote:

As my sound system does not have a HDMI output, I guess it has to be controlled by the Built-in Audio. However, only the Front Left and Front Right speakers are recognised (appear in the KDE Audio and Video Settings -> Hardware Setup). The other 3 speakers and the subwoofer are silent during audio playback.

What profiles are available to you?

You could consider using pavucontrol (PulseAudio volume control GUI) to set the desired profile configuration as well. It may not be installed.

Also, what is reported by the following?

Code:

aplay -L

Hello,
thank you all for your swift replies.
@enorbet: alsamixer starts with the default sound card, named PulseAudio. It only has Master and Capture channels, which are both unmuted. With F6 I can select the HDA INTEL PCH sound card, where the sound system is recognised and everything is unmuted.
@ferrari: The profiles available (same in the KDE Settings and in pavucontrol) are:
1. Analog Stereo Duplex
2. Analog Stereo Output
3. Digital Stereo (IEC958) Output + Analog Stereo Input
4. Digital Stereo (IEC958) Output
5. Analog Stereo Input
6. Off

From these only 1. and 2. produce some sound. The output of "aplay -L" is:

Code:

bash-4.3$ aplay -L

null

    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)

pulse

    PulseAudio Sound Server

sysdefault:CARD=PCH

    HDA Intel PCH, ALC887-VD Analog

    Default Audio Device

front:CARD=PCH,DEV=0

    HDA Intel PCH, ALC887-VD Analog

    Front speakers

surround21:CARD=PCH,DEV=0

    HDA Intel PCH, ALC887-VD Analog

    2.1 Surround output to Front and Subwoofer speakers

surround40:CARD=PCH,DEV=0

    HDA Intel PCH, ALC887-VD Analog

    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers

surround41:CARD=PCH,DEV=0

    HDA Intel PCH, ALC887-VD Analog

    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers

surround50:CARD=PCH,DEV=0

    HDA Intel PCH, ALC887-VD Analog

    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers

surround51:CARD=PCH,DEV=0

    HDA Intel PCH, ALC887-VD Analog

    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers

surround71:CARD=PCH,DEV=0

    HDA Intel PCH, ALC887-VD Analog

    7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers

iec958:CARD=PCH,DEV=0

    HDA Intel PCH, ALC887-VD Digital

    IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output

hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0

    HDA NVidia, HDMI 0

    HDMI Audio Output

hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=1

    HDA NVidia, HDMI 1

    HDMI Audio Output

Best regards,
Martin

Quote:

Originally Posted by ferrari (Post 5734329)

This might be relevant...
https://wiki.debian.org/PulseAudio#S...d_sound_system

Hello,
I did

Code:

rm -r ~/.config/pulse /tmp/pulse-*

I changed

Code:

default-sample-channels = 2

Code:

default-sample-channels = 6

Then I restarted the computer. However, now the sound card with the HDMI output (GF119 HDMI Audio Controller) is recognised as having 6 channels. The card that is actually
relevant (HDA Intel PCH) still only has two channels.

Best regards,
Martin

it would be handy to see the output to

Code:

aplay -l

I will assume hdmi is card0 and analog is card1

assuming you will never use hdmi, the first thing to do is to use a config for alsa....not PA to stop hdmi like this

Code:

sudo echo 'options snd_hda_intel enable=0,1' > /etc/modprobe.d/intel.conf

full reboot and

Code:

alsamixer -c0

should now show analog sound

2) to get surround sound, we append a line to intel config line to use
options snd_hda_intel model=string

where string is related to your intel sound but my old text file for models for 887 show only
ALC88x/898/1150
======================
acer-aspire-4930g Acer Aspire 4930G/5930G/6530G/6930G/7730G
acer-aspire-8930g Acer Aspire 8330G/6935G
acer-aspire Acer Aspire others
inv-dmic Inverted internal mic workaround
no-primary-hp VAIO Z/VGC-LN51JGB workaround (for fixed speaker DAC)

which may be deficient so might have to rely on using the PA config line of

default-sample-channels = 6

You wouldn't happen to have old alsa configuration in force would you?

What's in ~/.asoundrc? (If you don't have one, that's fine.) Anything in /etc/alsa/?

Hello,
thank you very much for you replies.

aplay -l gives:

Code:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****

card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC887-VD Analog [ALC887-VD Analog]

  Subdevices: 1/1

  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 1: ALC887-VD Digital [ALC887-VD Digital]

  Subdevices: 1/1

  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]

  Subdevices: 1/1

  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]

  Subdevices: 1/1

  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I did

Code:

echo 'options snd_hda_intel enable=0,1' > /etc/modprobe.d/intel.conf

and rebooted. Now only the GF119 HDMI Audio Controller appeared in both PA and the KDE settings. There was no sound at all.
@Richard Cranium: There is neither ~/.asoundrc nor /etc/alsa/

Best regards,
Martin

yes see I see I assume....order hdmi then analog but your situation is reversed so reverse those numbers

use root powers to edit the file so it reads

Quote:

options snd_hda_intel enable=1,0

or reboot you will lose hdmi

2) if you are not sure how to start a text editor with root powers

you mention KDE you are likely to have kwrite installed so try

Code:

sudo kwrite /etc/modprobe.d/intel.conf

3) now use your file manager to copy files from
/etc/pulse
to
~/.config/pulse

(if you use Dolphin click on View and click button to show hidden files)

4)click into /home/yourname/.config/pulse/daemon.conf

find the line that reads
; default-sample-channels = 2

remove the ; and change to 6

full reboot and no need to touch files in /tmp as you now are running PA with local user configs
---you should now have surround sound

later we can tune your card if its capable of higher output than 44100 hz
and don't change channel mapping until you reboot and test please.

it should work out of the box

good luck

Hello,

@aus9: I did what you suggested, except that I did not copy the pulse configs from /etc to /home because I prefer to make the settings system wide. Now sound works, but still only Front Left and Front Right are recognised (displayed in the KDE settings). During playback also only two of the speakers work, the other three and the subwoofer are silent.

Ok

you may still have a wrong config in PA......looking at your post 5 you seem to have only 2 ch and we fix this
you may still have a wrong config in alsamixer
you may not have jacks in correct holes

----forgive I am not suggesting you are an idiot I am merely pointing out the permutations. We are going to eliminate those errors.

1) open a terminal and run (we only need to see output

Code:

alsamixer -c0

upload it to your fav image sharing site and link it so we can see it please
I will show you a surround image with headphones auto sensed but headphones unplugged
http://imgur.com/a/4v0zH

2) then take a screenshot of your PA GUI screen as example
you may need to install it.....some distros don't have it by default

Code:

sudo apt install pavucontrol

then menu -> multimedia (or audio?) -> volume control (PA vol control)
or open a terminal and run "pavucontrol" without the quotes
or open the run command and run same command

go to the config tab and end and show me which surround sound you have selected

http://imgur.com/a/b6QPt

^^ if you do no inputs like mic or line in then you only need "out"

I only have a decent 2 ch system but if you have 6 then that should be either 5.1 or 5.1 with input

3) also you may like to post your boot up log showing there are no errors in detecting surround sound

eg journalctl -b ----with a snippet as the log will be too big for LQ

eg mine
ul 15 15:12:40 neo kernel: input: HDA Intel HDMI HDMI/DP,pcm=3 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:03.0/sound/card0/input9
Jul 15 15:12:40 neo kernel: input: HDA Intel PCH Front Mic as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card1/input10
Jul 15 15:12:40 neo kernel: input: HDA Intel PCH Rear Mic as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card1/input11
Jul 15 15:12:40 neo kernel: input: HDA Intel PCH Line as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card1/input12
Jul 15 15:12:40 neo kernel: input: HDA Intel PCH Line Out Front as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card1/input13
Jul 15 15:12:40 neo kernel: input: HDA Intel PCH Line Out Surround as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card1/input14
Jul 15 15:12:40 neo kernel: input: HDA Intel PCH Line Out CLFE as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card1/input15
Jul 15 15:12:40 neo kernel: input: HDA Intel PCH Line Out Side as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card1/input16
Jul 15 15:12:40 neo kernel: input: HDA Intel PCH Front Headphone as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card1/input17

Hello,
thank you very much for you helpfulness.
Here follow some screenshots:

http://imgur.com/a/BT2a0
http://imgur.com/a/atlmV
http://imgur.com/a/rgjTY
http://imgur.com/a/jOKlI
http://imgur.com/a/KFn40

My syslog file is attached.

The profiles available (same in the KDE Settings and in pavucontrol) are:
1. Analog Stereo Duplex
2. Analog Stereo Output
3. Digital Stereo (IEC958) Output + Analog Stereo Input
4. Digital Stereo (IEC958) Output
5. Analog Stereo Input
6. Off
From these, only 1. and 2. produce sound.

Sorry, I hope now the syslog is here.