No sound in 8.10 - help!

[DrSuave]

Hi everyone

A week ago I installed Intrepid on a new laptop, and have got most of it running smoothly - however, I've been without sound since the live disk. I've tried two Ubuntu 8.10 live disks, a Linux Mint 6 live disk, an openSuse live disk and a Fedora live disk and none have any audio.

I've been following various tutorials and trouble shooting guides, but I can't seem to enable whatever it is that needs enabling.

I'd really appreciate any advice at all at this stage!

Here's the output of a few commands that you might find useful:

wilf@drsuave:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 04)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 04)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 04)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 04)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 04)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 04)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 04)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f4)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 04)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon HD 2400 XT
01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc RV610 audio device [Radeon HD 2400 PRO]
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 01)
04:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] Network Connection (rev 02)

wilf@drsuave:~$ lsusb
Bus 007 Device 007: ID 07b3:0900 Plustek, Inc. 
Bus 007 Device 006: ID 04a9:10c9 Canon, Inc. 
Bus 007 Device 004: ID 0bda:0158 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Mass Stroage Device
Bus 007 Device 003: ID 04b4:6830 Cypress Semiconductor Corp. CY7C68300A EZ-USB AT2 USB 2.0 to ATA/ATAPI
Bus 007 Device 002: ID 05e3:0608 Genesys Logic, Inc. USB-2.0 4-Port HUB
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 0c45:62c0 Microdia Pavilion Webcam
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 006 Device 002: ID 147e:2016  
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 046d:c018 Logitech, Inc. Optical Wheel Mouse
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0a5c:2101 Broadcom Corp. A-Link BlueUsbA2 Bluetooth
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

wilf@drsuave:~$ cat /proc/asound/cards
 0 [Intel          ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
                      HDA Intel at 0xfb300000 irq 22
 1 [HDMI           ]: HDA-Intel - HDA ATI HDMI
                      HDA ATI HDMI at 0xfb010000 irq 17

wilf@drsuave:~$ cat /proc/asound/modules
 0 snd_hda_intel
 1 snd_hda_intel

wilf@drsuave:~$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: HDA Generic [HDA Generic]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: ATI HDMI [ATI HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

wilf@drsuave:~$ arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: HDA Generic [HDA Generic]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I'm more then willing to provide any extra information needed.

Something of a side note:
The ATI sound chip only seems capable of turning IEC958 on and off (in ALSA mixer at least), and the only chip (is that the right word?) that can control PCM is HDA INTEL Alsa Mixer.

And another bit of information I just thought of!

Neither my user or root were members of the groups pulse, pulse-access, or pulse-rt - I've since fixed this, but I don't know enough about these things to know if that was an indicator of what might be causing the problem - perhaps there are other groups I need to 'join'?

I've also updated alsa using this script.

Edit: I've since found that with these things the brand of your computer is important - it's a Hi-Grade Notino D7000SRA - its the best computer I've ever had - it would bring tears to my eyes if I couldn't get Ubuntu working properly on it!


I hope I provided enough info - thanks for reading!
Wilf

[jmadero]

it is a bug and has been triaged with medium importance at launchpad

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/272960

unfortunately since these laptops aren't really really popular, you may have to wait awhile before the fix comes out.

You may want to download Ubuntu 9.04 and see if you get anywhere with that

[cosmicbrat]

I had the same problem with an image CD I made of Ubuntu-810 last week.. plus there were several desktop features I couldn't change.. so I tossed that CD in the trash, and reinstalled from the CD I made 6-weeks ago, and had no troubles... Could it be that the latest image CD download is a little bit corrupt..? or maybe my copying it corrupted it..?

[saivin]

it is a bug and has been triaged with medium importance at launchpad

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/272960

With Ubuntu and that particular laptop model, may be. But Wilf says he faced same problem with other distros too!

I've tried two Ubuntu 8.10 live disks, a Linux Mint 6 live disk, an openSuse live disk and a Fedora live disk and none have any audio.

Could it be because there are two audio devices? Even if that is the case I don't know how to put off one

[saivin]

Hi,
just to update. The problem is not related to the laptop I guess (mine is Dell Vostro). I upgraded my Debian KDE to KDE4 yesterday night. And since then I don't have audio!!!

Whats strange for me is the onboard sound (the sound we hear when we login/logout) is working fine! But when I try to play a audio/video file I get an error saying

xine part failed to load... All audio drivers failed to load...

I have tried all the commands that wilf tried and my Intel HDA card is recognised. I get same results as wilf except that I don't have ATI ones... Strange! Will be eagerly following this thread coz, I'm not only sympathetic now but empathetic...

[saivin]

Ok, I guess I talk too much. Anyways, for my problem I asked help in #debian-kde. One of the nice guys there suggested I try:

lsof | grep dsp

I did and this is what I got:

knotify4  3317     saivin   12w      CHR       14,3       0t0       6048 /dev/dsp

So according to him knotify4 was directly talking to the /dev/dsp and eating up the resources. I did

kill 3317

and tried to play audio and voila it played smoothly. Then as per his advice, I went to 'System Settings'->'Notifications' and changed 'Player Settings' to 'No audio output'. Logged out and logged back in. Now there is no sound notification but I have audio for the rest of the purposes. This is ofcourse a temp solution (We don't know where the problem lies, why knotify4 was talking directly to /dev/dsp and what is the workaround). But for my immediate needs the problem is solved.

Now, coming to Wilf's problem, he ofcourse uses Ubuntu and therefore GNOME. His problem may not be the same (remember I had audio for nofication while logging in and logging out). But Wilf, you may try

lsof | grep dsp

to see if something is eating up /dev/dsp? If so, try to disable it and check again. If you find any other solution good. Following this thread anyway...

[DrSuave]

Sorry it's been so long - for some reason I wasn't getting emails telling me about all these replies!

I've also made some progress (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/345631), however, it meant going through some slightly painful steps, and sound didn't come out of my headphone jack.

When I get a chance I'll install Kubuntu and try Saivin's solution (or do the Gnome solution you suggest) - I have to reinstall anyway, as I'm now using Jaunty - which doesn't yet fully support my graphics card!

Thanks for the support and solidarity.

Wilf

[jmadero]

for headphone support try doing this:

Edit "/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base", adding this line, "options snd-hda-intel position_fix=1 model=3stack"

[memius]

i think this is a very normal problem.

i have an intel box with run-of-the-mill hardware, and i also have no sound with kubuntu 8.10 and kde 4.

i've had this problem earlier, though, and the solution back then was to do alsaconf. however, alsa seems to be a very inferior solution to oss...

[DrSuave]

Jmadero: tried your line of code, but it didn't do anything for me

here's a copy of my alsa-base.conf (for some reason it's got a .conf on the end of it in my install of Jaunty):

# autoloader aliases
install sound-slot-0 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-0
install sound-slot-1 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-1
install sound-slot-2 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-2
install sound-slot-3 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-3
install sound-slot-4 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-4
install sound-slot-5 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-5
install sound-slot-6 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-6
install sound-slot-7 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-7

# Cause optional modules to be loaded above generic modules
install snd /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-ioctl32 ; :sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq ; }
#
# Workaround at bug #499695 (reverted in Ubuntu see LP #319505)
install snd-pcm /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-pcm $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-pcm-oss ; : ; }
install snd-mixer /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-mixer $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-mixer-oss ; : ; }
install snd-seq /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-seq $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq-midi ; /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq-oss ; : ; }
#
install snd-rawmidi /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-rawmidi $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq-midi ; : ; }
# Cause optional modules to be loaded above sound card driver modules
install snd-emu10k1 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-emu10k1 $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-emu10k1-synth ; }
install snd-via82xx /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-via82xx $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq ; }

# Load saa7134-alsa instead of saa7134 (which gets dragged in by it anyway)
install saa7134 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install saa7134 $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist saa7134-alsa ; : ; }
# Prevent abnormal drivers from grabbing index 0
options bt87x index=-2
options cx88_alsa index=-2
options saa7134-alsa index=-2
options snd-atiixp-modem index=-2
options snd-intel8x0m index=-2
options snd-via82xx-modem index=-2
options snd-usb-audio index=-2
options snd-usb-us122l index=-2
options snd-usb-usx2y index=-2
options snd-usb-caiaq index=-2
# Ubuntu #62691, enable MPU for snd-cmipci
options snd-cmipci mpu_port=0x330 fm_port=0x388
# Keep snd-pcsp from beeing loaded as first soundcard
options snd-pcsp index=-2
# options snd-hda-intel model=ref
## options snd-hda-intel model=dell-m42
# options snd-hda-intel model=dell-m43 
#options snd-hda-intel model=dell-m44
options snd-hda-intel model=dell-d21
options snd-hda-intel position_fix=1 model=3stack

Can anyone spot anything wrong?