[gentoo-user] No sound with Intel HDA card in Gateway m6888u laptop (2.6.30-r4, amd64)

Jesse Taylor

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Sep 17, 2009, 3:20:09 AM9/17/09

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Hello --

I've been trying to get my sound working for nearly a month now with
no luck.

* I've followed the Gentoo ALSA Guide *several times*, and it's not
working for me.

* I've already unmuted my card in alsamixer and raised the volume to
100%

* There is no sound that is coming from any of the following:
-- mplayer (movies or mp3's)
-- speaker-test
-- flash movies in Firefox
-- etc ... i.e. NOTHING gives me any sound

* But when I try to play sound in any of the above mentioned programs,
I get no errors (i.e. they seem to think that my sound *is* working.

* I've checked to make sure that the volume isn't muted via the
keyboard, and that the volume is at 100% there too.

* There are no errors that are popping up in /var/log/messages or /var/
log/dmesg when I do '/etc/init.d/alsasound restart' nor when I
manually rmmod/modprobe the sound modules

* The hardware is not damaged/broken -- it works fine from Windows

* I've tried to disable ati-hdmi in the kernel and it doesn't make a
difference (it's currently enabled, but unused according to lspci -k)
and according to http://kmuto.jp/debian/hcl/ the ATI HDMI card should
be using snd-hda-intel (as it currently is) anyway

* I've tried telling alsaconf to use the Intel HDA card, and the ATI
HDMI card -- neither of these work.

* I started a thread on Gentoo Forums regarding this problem () and
someone said: <QUOTE> HD Audio often needs a model option passed to it
based on the codec see /usr/src/linux/Documentation/

sound/alsa/HD-
Audio-Models.txt to see what the model should be. </QUOTE> ... But
looking through that file, I could not determine which option I should
use (if this is even a solution, anyway) for my card. Google was no
help here. (note that the Intel HDA card uses the SigmaTel ID 76a0
codec)

Is there any additional information I can provide (besides what I just
mentioned, and the stuff below) to help diagnose this? Anything else I
should try? Any help would be *very* much appreciated.

Thanks,
Jesse Taylor

P.S.

Here's some info on the current state of things:

#####################
# cat /proc/asound/cards
#####################
0 [Intel ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
HDA Intel at 0xf3300000 irq 22
1 [HDMI ]: HDA-Intel - HDA ATI HDMI
HDA ATI HDMI at 0xf3010000 irq 17

########
#lspci -k
########
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio
Controller (rev 04)
Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel
01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc RV630/M76 audio device
[Radeon HD 2600 Series]
Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

######################
# cat /proc/asound/devices
######################
0: [ 0] : control
1: : sequencer
16: [ 0- 0]: digital audio playback
24: [ 0- 0]: digital audio capture
32: [ 1] : control
33: : timer

########
# codecs (note that there are two codecs for card0 (is this normal?))
########

# the intel card
localhost ~ # cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#0
Codec: SigmaTel ID 76a0
Address: 0
Function Id: 0x1
Vendor Id: 0x838476a0
Subsystem Id: 0x107b0562
Revision Id: 0x100204

#the intel card again
localhost ~ # cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#1
Codec: Conexant ID 2c06
Address: 1
Function Id: 0x2
Vendor Id: 0x14f12c06
Subsystem Id: 0x14f10000
Revision Id: 0x100000
Modem Function Group: 0x2

# the ATI HDMI card
localhost ~ # cat /proc/asound/card1/codec#0
Codec: ATI ID aa01
Address: 0
Function Id: 0x1
Vendor Id: 0x1002aa01
Subsystem Id: 0x00aa0100
Revision Id: 0x100000
No Modem Function Group found

########
# lsmod
########
snd_seq_oss 31392 0
snd_seq_midi_event 7208 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 56672 4 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device 7164 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss 41184 0
snd_mixer_oss 16904 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_hrtimer 2840 0
snd_hda_codec_atihdmi 3944 1
snd_hda_intel 28296 0
snd_hda_codec 66152 2 snd_hda_codec_atihdmi,snd_hda_intel
snd_pcm 74640 3
snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
snd_timer 22264 3 snd_seq,snd_hrtimer,snd_pcm
snd 65256 9
snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
snd_page_alloc 9496 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm

#############
# Kernel config
#############

CONFIG_SND=m
CONFIG_SND_TIMER=m
CONFIG_SND_PCM=m
CONFIG_SND_JACK=y
CONFIG_SND_SEQUENCER=m
CONFIG_SND_OSSEMUL=y
CONFIG_SND_MIXER_OSS=m
CONFIG_SND_PCM_OSS=m
CONFIG_SND_PCM_OSS_PLUGINS=y
CONFIG_SND_SEQUENCER_OSS=y
CONFIG_SND_HRTIMER=m
CONFIG_SND_SEQ_HRTIMER_DEFAULT=y
CONFIG_SND_SUPPORT_OLD_API=y
CONFIG_SND_VMASTER=y
CONFIG_SND_PCI=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_INTEL=m
# CONFIG_SND_HDA_HWDEP is not set
CONFIG_SND_HDA_INPUT_BEEP=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_ATIHDMI=y
# CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_INTELHDMI is not set
CONFIG_SND_HDA_GENERIC=y
# CONFIG_SND_HDA_POWER_SAVE is not set

#########################
# cat /etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf
#########################

alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
alias sound-slot-0 snd-hda-intel

Also, check out the output of the info script from the official ALSA
site: http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=b741663fa1c69d5a5cfeabfa51086ba636c6aef5

Helmut Jarausch

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Sep 17, 2009, 3:30:15 AM9/17/09

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On 17 Sep, Jesse Taylor wrote:
> Hello --
>
> I've been trying to get my sound working for nearly a month now with
> no luck.

> #############

Try to add CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_REALTEK=y
(Build Realtek HD-audio codec support)

It's working here since kernel 2.6.30 and recent alsa-lib
(>=media-libs/alsa-lib-1.0.21)

Try to set everything in alsamixer to (100 %)

Helmut.

--
Helmut Jarausch

Lehrstuhl fuer Numerische Mathematik
RWTH - Aachen University
D 52056 Aachen, Germany

Stroller

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Sep 17, 2009, 5:10:06 AM9/17/09

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On 17 Sep 2009, at 08:12, Jesse Taylor wrote:

.... Anything else I should try? Any help would be *very* much appreciated.

You may get more helpful advice than this, but in case you don't.... try booting from a Knoppix or Ubuntu LiveCD. If the sound works in that then you can try copying the relevant config files on your Gentoo system. If it doesn't, then it hasn't taken you long to try.

Stroller.

Dale

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Sep 17, 2009, 8:10:07 AM9/17/09

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He can also boot the CD, then if it works run lspci -k and see what
drivers it uses for sound. Then, he can go into menuconfig and enable
the same drivers.

Dale

:-) :-)

John H. Moe

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Sep 17, 2009, 8:30:15 AM9/17/09

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From the above, it looks like your card, while using the Intel HD Audio
spec, is using the Conexant codec. But you don't have support for that
in your kernel, or at least, not in the options you quoted
(CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_CONEXANT). Try adding that. If that doesn't
work, try adding support for all the codecs listed under the Device
Drivers -> Sound card support -> ALSA -> PCI Sound Devices -> Intel HD
Audio sub-menu and see if that fixes things up.

Also, at a guess, the two "codecs" are going to be the Conexant codec
for the sound card, and the SigmaTel for the modem. But for the ATI
HDMI, I'm used to seeing that referring to video cards and monitors; see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdmi.

HTH

John Moe