No sound from laptop

[GlideKensington]

I've searched through the forums and tried the solutions given but couldn't get my sound to work

I have a HP pavilion dv7 laptop and I'm running Lucid Lynx.

I get the following output when I run the alsa-info bash script found in another thread:

ALSA Information Script v 0.4.59
--------------------------------

This script visits the following commands/files to collect diagnostic
information about your ALSA installation and sound related hardware.

dmesg
lspci
lsmod
aplay
amixer
alsactl
/proc/asound/
/sys/class/sound/
~/.asoundrc (etc.)

See 'utils_alsa-info.sh --help' for command line options.

cat: /proc/asound/version: No such file or directory
grep: /proc/asound/cards: No such file or directory
cat: /proc/asound/cards: No such file or directory
cat: /proc/asound/modules: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access /dev/snd/*: No such file or directory
grep: /proc/asound/cards: No such file or directory
/sbin/alsactl: save_state:1502: No soundcards found...
cat: /tmp/alsa-info.zCcbNqM6qE/alsactl.tmp: No such file or directory

Any help would be appreciated. FYI, I'm a linux noob :/

[rokytnji]

Open a terminal and see what

lspci | grep -i audio

may give you.

[GlideKensington]

Open a terminal and see what

lspci | grep -i audio

may give you.

I got the following when I did the command you suggested:

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio (rev 05)
01:00.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)

[rokytnji]

Ok.

What do you get when you type in

alsamixer

and after that (if alsa mixer does not show a sound card)

aplay -l

that is a lower case L after -

[GlideKensington]

Ok.

What do you get when you type in

alsamixer

and after that (if alsa mixer does not show a sound card)

aplay -l

that is a lower case L after -

I got the following:

$ alsamixer
cannot open mixer: No such file or directory

$ aplay -l
aplay: device_list:223: no soundcards found...

Btw, thanks for your help!

[rokytnji]

OK. I was searching for a alsa upgrade script I remeber reading in Ubuntu forums. The instructions are step by step to install and run the script in the thread I am going to point you to.

It basically

BACKGROUND:

The audio functionality of any computer system belongs to the very basic functions of a PC and OS. No sound, poor sound, limited functionality - No use for such a system!

The main idea behind upgrading ALSA with attached script is to make Linux available to a slightly wider community.

The script bridges the huge delay (up to a year) of Alsa updates supplied through the official channels.
By running the upgrade you'll have a much bigger chance to get your soundcard working or problems resolved.

The script installs the latest official stable ALSA release. (optional the even more up 2 date driver snapshot will be installed

Give it a shot/ this is recent stuff for upgrading alsa in Lucid

ALSA Upgrade Script - Ubuntu Forums


Edit: the reason I am pointing you to this thread is aplay -l and alsamixer show that your souncard is not supported in the kernel you are using. So the script basically updates alsa driver to latest version which you probably don't have right now. Newer version usually means better/more support for different hardware.

[GlideKensington]

OK. I was searching for a alsa upgrade script I remeber reading in Ubuntu forums. The instructions are step by step to install and run the script in the thread I am going to point you to.

Worked like a charm!! Thanks!

But there's one slight problem...before I could change the volume of my sound by changing it from the speaker icon on the top panel bar or going through System>Preferences>Sound. However now, the panel is gone and also when I go to System> Preferences>Sound, it just shows a dialog that says "Waiting for sound system to respond".

I could get around it by adjusting the sound with alsamixer, but just wondering if there's a fix for the problem.


Just out of curiosity, how come updating my alsa from ubunut's synaptic package manager didn't fix it but running the update provided in the thread fixed it?

Again, thanks!

[rokytnji]

Just out of curiosity, how come updating my alsa from ubunut's synaptic package manager didn't fix it but running the update provided in the thread fixed it?

remember my quote from that thread

The script bridges the huge delay (up to a year) of Alsa updates supplied through the official channels.

However now, the panel is gone

Ok. Right click on bottom panel and select add new panel. Locate it on top.. Right click on new top panel and select add new (whatever, I am in Antix running Icewm desktop and I forget all the options right now. Late at night here)

Add whatever you want to the panel. Google a How to add to gnome panel and you are set.