CD audio not playing

[Minstrel]

Hoping anyone can help out with a minor issue I've yet to resolve. I'm fairly new to Linux but have a working system now thanks to some help.

I have KDE installed, and when I pop in an audio CD, I get the dialog box asking what I want to do. If I choose 'play', the default player comes up, recognizes the CD and the tracks, and appears to start playing, but no sound comes out. The volume is up, sound works in all my applications, and I do have an analog audio cable from the drive to the sound card. I can also rip the tracks and play as MP3 if I want just fine.

I have only had a couple thoughts so far, not sure if they are valid.

1) Could I have connected the 4-pin audio cable incorrectly? I don't know if it's possible to put it in upside down. It felt like it clicked into place properly.

2) Could Linux be recognizing my on-the-motherboard sound system in place of the sound card? I thought I remembered seeing the name of my sound card come up during the initial installation, but I couldn't figure out how to check which device it's using.

I'm using etch on AMD64, ASUS SK8V mobo, DVD RW drive (Hitachi I believe), and an older 16 bit sound blaster audigy card (at work now, can get the exact models from home tonight if it's helpful).

Thanks very much,
Don

[bigtomrodney]

You might be onto something about the onboard sound. Previously I had a conflict between my soundblaster and my intel onboard sound. Initially I disabled the onboard sound in the BIOS, then later discovered that my onboard was actually better than my ancient sound blaster and switched back. That said I'm not sure what the state of play is with Audigy drivers.

[Minstrel]

Thanks bigtom. Do you happen to know what I'd enter at the command line to display which sound board is being used? (Or where in KDE I'd see it)

[jens]

You really don't need that small cable or anything else hardware related.
If it ever worked in any other OS before, there's no doubt it will work in Debian as well.

Do you mind trying a non KDE app like xmms?
It should play your audio cd without any problem and need of some silly small cable.

I it doesn't work, please run it(xmms or anything else) from the CLI(your Konsole/Terminal) and post the exact error message.

[Minstrel]

Thanks Jens.

Yes I am able to get the CD's to play with XMMS, as well as, I found out last night, KSCD, but I have to enable digital audio extraction on both, Windows-style. I was hoping I could find out how to play them the old fashioned way, which uses that aforementioned cable.

I tried plugging it into the motherboard's audio slot, but no luck. Barring any other revelations, I'm planning to try it in the AUX audio in ports on the sound card and motherboard to see if that works for any reason.

I was also able to see, via KDE, that the system is recognizing both the Sound Blaster Audigy 2, and the VIA 8237 Southbridge controller (which I assume is how it recognizes my onboard audio). I'm not sure, though, how to turn one or the other off.

[Minstrel]

Wohoo, solved!

It was working all along, with the audio cable in the sound card as intended.

I opened up KMix and started fiddling with the controls, unmuting things, etc. Found that for some reason the Analog Mix volume was set to 0% by default. Had a CD playing the whole time so I could tell if anything had worked and when I turned that one up, on came the volume!

Next time I'll promise to repeat to myself 10X "It's never the hardware, it's never the hardware..."