sound card apparently installed, but sound doesnt work!

[richjh1916]

Hello. I am fairly new to linux, and trying to get everything set up in Debian lenny on my new Toshiba staellite L500.


I have successfully installed the wireless drivers and graphics card and have them both up and running.
But I'm having trouble with the sound card. Specifically, it appears to be installed but I cant get any sound or any devices related to sound (speakers, volume control, alsamixer) to work at all.

this is my kernel:
----------------------------------

uname -r

2.6.26-2-686

----------------------------------

and this is the result of lspci:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Device 0044 (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 0045 (rev 02)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak HECI Controller (rev 06)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 05)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak High Definition Audio (rev 05)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 05)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev 05)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev 05)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev 05)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev 05)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak PCI Express Root Port 6 (rev 05)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 05)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev a5)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak LPC Interface Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak 4 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak SMBus Controller (rev 05)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Device 9480
01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc Device aa38
07:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 8172 (rev 10)
0c:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)
ff:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Device 2c62 (rev 02)
ff:00.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Device 2d01 (rev 02)
ff:02.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Device 2d10 (rev 02)
ff:02.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Device 2d11 (rev 02)
ff:02.2 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Device 2d12 (rev 02)
ff:02.3 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Device 2d13 (rev 02)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I notice I appear to have two devices related to audio, 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak High Definition Audio (rev 05), and 01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc Device aa38. Are these both sound cards? Is this something to do with the problem?

if I run alsaconf (I run this as root), it tells me the following:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Following card(s) are found on your system.

hda-intel ATI Technologies Inc Device aa38
legacy Probe legacy ISA (non-PnP) chips


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I choose to install the hda-intel ATI Technologies Inc Device aa38, I say yes to "Do you want to modify /etc/modprobe.d/sound (and /etc/modprobe.conf if present)" , alsaconf seems happy and tells me:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OK, sound driver is configured.

ALSA CONFIGURATOR

will prepare the card for playing now.

Now I'll run alsasound init script, then I'll use
amixer to raise the default volumes.
You can change the volume later via a mixer
program such as alsamixer or gamix.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then it gives me a nice cheery message telling me that alsa is ready to use and telling me to have a lot of fun! But sound doesnt work, even after a reboot.
I tried looking at the installed modules with an lsmod (below, all modules not relating to sound edited out, can post whole output if necessary)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Module Size Used by
snd_hda_intel 325720 0
snd_pcm 62660 1 snd_hda_intel
snd_seq 41456 0
snd_timer 17800 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device 6380 1 snd_seq
snd 45636 5 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_de vice
soundcore 6368 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 7816 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm

---------------------------------

I confess that I don't understand how to interpret this output - the man and help pages for lsmod are not much help here (at least to me).

I also tried speaker-test to see if it got any response - it gives me the following gives me the following output:

---------------------------------
debian:/home/rich# speaker-test

speaker-test 1.0.16

Playback device is default
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 1 channels
Using 16 octaves of pink noise
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:996snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
Playback open error: -2,No such file or directory....

----------------------------------------
etc etc etc etc (continues to try until exited through ctrl+c)..

when I click on volume control in the top right hand corner of the screen I get this error message:

--------------------------------------------

The volume control did not find any elements and/or devices to control. This means either that you don't have the right GStreamer plugins installed, or that you don't have a sound card configured.

----------------------------------------------

Same deal with all other graphic interfaces for sound devices: my conclusion so far is that drivers seem to be installed correctly, but that the operating system still somehow doesnt know what to do.

What am I doing wrong? I know the correct answer to this maybe "everything", but does anyone have any specific pointers? I'd be very grateful.

Thanks in advance

[tpl]

welcome to the forum

appreciate your providing rather complete information;
this looks helpful:

Linux Kernel Driver Database: CONFIG_SND_HDA_INTEL: Intel HD Audio

need two modules: "snd-hda-intel" you have, also need "snd-hda-codec-xxx"
not present.

compiling a custom kernel, you should include

CONFIG_SND_HDA_INTEL=m

in your .config (I find this in 2.6.32.10) and then you will
find a number of choices for the codec:

CONFIG_SND_AC97_CODEC=m
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_REALTEK=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_ANALOG=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_SIGMATEL=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_VIA=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_ATIHDMI=y (in stock 2.6.26-2-686 kernel)
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_NVHDMI=y
*CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_INTELHDMI=y (not)
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_CIRRUS=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_CONEXANT=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_CA0110=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_CMEDIA=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_SI3054=y

so my suggestion is, to download the source for a recent kernel,
then be sure you have CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_INTELHDMI=y and recompile.

[richjh1916]

thanks very much indeed, tpl for the infor & for the rapid response, will do as you suggest and let you know how I get on.

til later

[richjh1916]

Hello again!

I've been trying to compile a custom kernel (2.6.32.10), as suggested by tpl, to solve my problems with getting audio up and running. This is the first time I've ever done this, and I'm not finding it all that easy. Basically I wanted to recompile with the new kernel, with .config customized to include CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_INTELHDMI=y.

I've followed the instructions on this website:
How To Compile A Kernel - Debian Etch | HowtoForge - Linux Howtos and Tutorials.
(sorry forum rules wont let me include the URL)

1. Is the guidance on this site appropriate for what I am trying to do?are there any other important steps I'm missing out?

2. How can I be sure to include the CONFIG_SND_HDA_INTEL=m and make sure that CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_INTELHDMI=y? the menuconfig dialogue just doesnt seem to give me this option (the graphic interface method perhaps just doesnt show enough detail, but without it (config) I'm in very unfamiliar territory). Ideally I'd just like to add the new options to my existing kernal configuration.

would really appreciate some feedback from tpl, who helped me to begin with (thanks again) or anyone who happens to have some experience with this..I'm struggling a bit!

thanks a lot

[richjh1916]

Hello Again!

Problem solved!!! I now have fully working sound and sound devices. I haven't tried the microphone yet, but certainly my Intel HDA soundcard (Intel Corporation Ibex Peak High Definition Audio) is now recognised by the system.

Thanks very much indeed, tpl, for the valuable advice. I initially had a whole lot of trouble compiling a new kernel with the relevant CONFIG settings. I created several misconfigured new kernels which wouldn't boot. In the end (probably because my xserver, xorg, was not properly configured in the first place - I think my graphics driver - ATI devices are not really supported I read somewhere - fouled things up). I ended up with an unstable system that crashed almost as soon as I entered it (complete system freeze with mouse and keyboard locked out - only solution was to hold down the power-off button). Needless to say, this seriously un-recommended method of shutting the system down made the problem worse each time until it just stopped booting. Finally I just went back to the original stable release 2.6.26-2-686 (my original install cd) and started again from scratch. This time, I compiled the new kernel no problem, as follows:

step 1. get new kernel source file "linux-2.6.32.10.tar.bz2" from kernel website. (I used wget)
I downloaded this to Desktop and copied to my home directory. Its recommended in quite a few places to compile and install new kernels from the home directory. It certainly worked for me. I also did everything as root. This probably wasn't necessary.

get necessary packages-
#apt-get install kernel-package ncurses-dev bzip2 module-init-tools
initramfs-tools procps fakeroot
#apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev libglib2.0-dev libglade2-dev libqt3-mt-dev

(these last for gconf configuration tool, among other things)

step 2. Move into home directory where tarred kernel source file is and untar
#tar xjf linux-2.6.32.10.tar.bz2

step 3. This is important. copy the existing configuration to the new kernel source directory:
#cp /boot/config-$(uname -r) ./.config
(I checked that it had worked with ls -al)

step 4: CONFIGURATION of new kernel with gconfig (I found gconfig helpful, better I think that menuconfig because it conbines a good graphic interface with full information about each individual configuration file (the .config file can also be viewed in a text editor; I did "pico ./config"). In the Device Drivers section, I went to (I dont remember the exact headings)--sound cards--PCI devices--Linux Advanced Sound Architecture. and then scrolled down through the manufacturers to--Intel HD Audio tab. Here, the various configuration settings are listed. The one i needed, SND_HDA_CODEC_INTELHDMI was already selected, marked NEW in the 2.6.32.10 kernel. I checked all the INTEL HD Audio options, just in case, and saved the configuration.

step 5: clean up
#make-kpkg clean

step 6: make multiprocessing work:
#export CONCURRENCY_LEVEL=2

step 7: compile
#make-kpkg --rootcmd fakeroot --initrd --revision=custom.001
kernel_image kernel_headers

step 8. solve Lguest error:

after around an hour of compiling, no .deb packages were built, and the system through up an lguest error:
"cc -m32 -Wall -Wmissing-declarations -Wmissing-prototypes -O3 -I../../include -I../../arch/x86/include -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE lguest.c -o lguest
lguest.c:21:25: error: sys/eventfd.h: No such file or directory
lguest.c: In function ‘create_thread’:
lguest.c:1021: warning: implicit declaration of function ‘eventfd’
make: *** [lguest] Error 1

To solve this problem I opened "Documentation/lguest/Makefile in nano/pico
and changed the line that reads all: lguest by simply removing the word "lguest"." (solution from various websites)
I then saved the file and re-issued the compile command.

#make-kpkg --rootcmd fakeroot --initrd --revision=custom.001
kernel_image kernel_headers

this built me the .deb packages correctly.

step 9. move to the directory where the .deb package (the newly compiled kernel 2.26.32.10 is)
and install the kernel
#cd ..
# dpkg -i *.deb

Step 10: I rebooted, and selected the new kernal at the boot prompt. It gave me a couple of warnings, but loaded successfully. This time the sound worked perfectly. Now I just have to go back and set up wifi again, plus try to get the graphics card working with a configuration that doesnt crash the xserver every 5 minutes Any ideas?

Sorry for the long post, but I appreciated that someone took the time and trouble to reply to me, and perhaps this solution may help other users.

cheers