hdmi sound drops out after a while

[root]

I have set up a video server for some friends that
live 2 hours away. I first went down there a few weeks
ago and, when I left the system was working with
hdmi sound on the video.

After a couple of days they called me and said they
had no sound. At that time I had them run a bunch
of tests and I tried to get them to use pico to
modify some files. Finally I got them to shut down
X and restart it. That restored sound

Then their sound dropped out again.

I went down there last Sunday and again restarted X
and hdmi sound was restored.

When they start X I have them type:
xset -s off
xset -dpms

so that the screen doesn't black out.

The video card I put in their machine is an ATI Radeon 5450.
The sound device is alsadevice=hw=1.3 which I got by
running aplay -l and then a speaker test:
speaker-test -c 2 -l 2 -r 48000 -D hw:1,3

When they want to play a movie I set up the play
command as:
/usr/bin/mplayer -really-quiet -ao alsa:device=hw=1.3 -zoom -fs -vo xv <SOMEMOVIE>

Everything works fine when I am down there, but after a
day or two they call me and tell me the sound is gone.

My equivalent system is a Core2 Intel with an NVidia GeForce 210 video
card. Their system is a late Pentium 4 with the Radeon 5450 video card.

Both systems run Slackware 13.37.

Perhaps once a year my system will also lose hdmi sound and
it, too, is restored by restarting X. That isn't a problem
for me, but their system needs it every time they want
to watch video.

Both systems run 24/7.

I have googled for hdmi sound problems
but all those I have found involve setup problems
in which they never had sound, or lost sound after
updating Ubuntu, for instance.

I would greatly appreciate any ideas of what might be
the cause.
TIA

[Clark Smith]

On Wed, 01 May 2013 16:16:41 +0000, root wrote:

> I have set up a video server for some friends that live 2 hours away. I
> first went down there a few weeks ago and, when I left the system was
> working with hdmi sound on the video.
>
> After a couple of days they called me and said they had no sound. At
> that time I had them run a bunch of tests and I tried to get them to use
> pico to modify some files. Finally I got them to shut down X and restart
> it. That restored sound
>
> Then their sound dropped out again.
>
> I went down there last Sunday and again restarted X and hdmi sound was
> restored.
>
> When they start X I have them type:
> xset -s off
> xset -dpms
>
> so that the screen doesn't black out.
>
> The video card I put in their machine is an ATI Radeon 5450.

I had nothing but problems myself trying to get a Radeon card to
deliver HDMI sound under 13.37. After changing to an Nvidia card the
problems disappeared.

[Henrik Carlqvist]

On Wed, 01 May 2013 16:16:41 +0000, root wrote:

> Then their sound dropped out again.

Could it be that they have some application which changes the mixer
settings? If you run alsamixer in a terminal window, is any important
channel muted or set to very low volume?

If that is the cause it might help to run "alsactl restore".

regards Henrik
--
The address in the header is only to prevent spam. My real address is:
hc351(at)poolhem.se Examples of addresses which go to spammers:
root@localhost postmaster@localhost

[root]

I got sound, it just doesn't stay. I came across something on
google in which somebody reported his system dropped sound
when he was using Catalyst 13.1. I set up the system with
Catalyst 13.1, so I might have the same problem as he.

His system was OK using Catalyst 11.xx.

[root]

Henrik Carlqvist <Henrik.C...@deadspam.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 01 May 2013 16:16:41 +0000, root wrote:
>> Then their sound dropped out again.
>
> Could it be that they have some application which changes the mixer
> settings? If you run alsamixer in a terminal window, is any important
> channel muted or set to very low volume?
>
> If that is the cause it might help to run "alsactl restore".
>
> regards Henrik

I already had them check:
alsamixer -c 1
to see that all the boxes had 00 instead of MM.

This problem is especially vexing because they
don't run anything in between. They do shut
down their TV and the receiver, but the PC remains
on all the time. It isn't every time that they start
back up that sound is gone, but it is often enough
that the system isn't usable.

They are about 120 miles away and not computer savvy
so debugging is difficult.

[root]

New information. My friend just emailed me:
She rebooted the system and restored the sound.
Without doing anything else on the system she
switched her receiver over the watch her cable
box. Then she switched back to the PC and
sound was gone. I have asked her to connect
the PC directly to the TV to see if the PC
has sound.

[root]

More news: I put together a system here with
the same Radeon graphics card and I can reproduce
the problem. If the card doesn't see an hdmi
receiver for more than a few seconds sound is
disabled. That is, I can start a movie playing
then switch my receiver over to some unused input.
Wait a few seconds and come back and the sound
is gone while the picture continues.

I will contact AMD tomorrow by phone and I have
sent a request for help to their online support.

Meanwhile, if anyone has any ideas let me know.

[Ed Wilson]

root wrote:

> root <NoE...@home.org> wrote:
>> root <NoE...@home.org> wrote:
>>> Clark Smith <noad...@nowhere.net> wrote:
>>>> On Wed, 01 May 2013 16:16:41 +0000, root wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> The video card I put in their machine is an ATI Radeon 5450.
>>>>
>>>

>>> I got sound, it just doesn't stay. I came across something on
>>> google in which somebody reported his system dropped sound
>>> when he was using Catalyst 13.1. I set up the system with
>>> Catalyst 13.1, so I might have the same problem as he.
>>>
>>> His system was OK using Catalyst 11.xx.
>>
>> New information. My friend just emailed me:
>> She rebooted the system and restored the sound.
>> Without doing anything else on the system she
>> switched her receiver over the watch her cable
>> box. Then she switched back to the PC and
>> sound was gone. I have asked her to connect
>> the PC directly to the TV to see if the PC
>> has sound.
>
> More news: I put together a system here with
> the same Radeon graphics card and I can reproduce
> the problem. If the card doesn't see an hdmi
> receiver for more than a few seconds sound is
> disabled. That is, I can start a movie playing
> then switch my receiver over to some unused input.
> Wait a few seconds and come back and the sound
> is gone while the picture continues.
>
> I will contact AMD tomorrow by phone and I have
> sent a request for help to their online support.
>
> Meanwhile, if anyone has any ideas let me know.

Have you tried the open source drivers? I have a Radeon HD5870 in a laptop
and it works for me. The movies I watch are DVD and the occasional flash
video.

http://www.asus.com/us/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/G73Jh/#specifications


--
Ed

[root]

I have tried the radeon driver and have not been able to get
hdmi sound. While I am waiting to hear from AMD/ATI I will
give it another try. Thanks.

[root]

No luck. I don't think there is any support in the radeon
driver for hdmi sound. When sound is possible, the
device is alsa:device=hw=1.3. If I invoke mplayer with
-ao thatdevice
the picture doesn't play correctly and there still isn't
any sound. I think, on the laptop, sound defaults to
the normal sound output. On a desktop there are two
sound outputs (or more) one from the motherboard, and
one through hdmi.

[jeff g.]

and you have the hdmi set as primary, right?

not on slack but bodhi (ubuntu based) and I couldn't get sound with
anything /but/ the proprietary AMD driver, which pisses off a lot of
linux folk - they hate AMD as much as Linus hated nVidia.