Volume needs to be maxed in order to work

[five_pedals]

Hello,

I am new to Linux and think that it is really great. The only problem that I am having right now is that in order to get the volume to work I have to have it nearly maxed out. If I have it down below like 80% it is silent.

I am running Mint 14 Nadia on a HP Pavilion lap top. It is dual booted with Vista.

Hope I can get some help on this. If I can give more information to help solve the problem, just let me know.

Thanks.

[Rubberman]

Hello,

I am new to Linux and think that it is really great. The only problem that I am having right now is that in order to get the volume to work I have to have it nearly maxed out. If I have it down below like 80% it is silent.

I am running Mint 14 Nadia on a HP Pavilion lap top. It is dual booted with Vista.

Hope I can get some help on this. If I can give more information to help solve the problem, just let me know.

Thanks.

Open a console/terminal window and run the alsamixer command. Then go over to the PCM entry with the right cursor key and set PCM to max. The first bar is "Master" which is what gets set when you use the normal GUI to set volume. So, set Master to the middle of its range, and max out PCM (which is the hardware control). Now you should be able to get some reasonable control over your volume through the usual GUI.

[elija]

Or the volume icon in the system tray. It defaulted to a mere 38% on my systems

[five_pedals]

Open a console/terminal window and run the alsamixer command. Then go over to the PCM entry with the right cursor key and set PCM to max. The first bar is "Master" which is what gets set when you use the normal GUI to set volume. So, set Master to the middle of its range, and max out PCM (which is the hardware control). Now you should be able to get some reasonable control over your volume through the usual GUI.

I tried it and it does help. The volume control on the system tray is now around 85% for a decent volume, giving me a little more control.

Do you think that there is some sort of compatibility issue with the hardware and software? My laptop has these touch button on the top of the keyboard. I was just wondering if they could be causing some sort of conflict with the sound control software.

[five_pedals]

Or the volume icon in the system tray. It defaulted to a mere 38% on my systems

I am not sure I understand what you mean. My problem is that the volume control in the system tray (which I understand to be the volume control in the bottom right corner of my screen on the tool bar) is near max. I have adjusted the master sound in alsamixer, but the volume still has to be above 75% to get any sound at all. Is there some sort of master volume control that you are referring to?

[elija]

I hadn't picked up on that. Depending on your set up, you may also need to increase front and center using alsamixer. In my case it is front and I set it to max.