Arch Linux

hamptonids

Member

Registered: 2010-11-05

Posts: 5

HDMI Audio (ALSA) VS pulling my hair out. Which will win?

I have been fighting with HDMI audio for a few days, since installing it. I am pulling my hair out trying to get it to work. Any takers wanna help?

System:
uname -a
Linux Arch 2.6.35-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Oct 30 21:22:26 CEST 2010 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 950 @ 3.07GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

Name           : alsa-firmware
Version        : 1.0.23-1
Name           : pulseaudio
Version        : 0.9.21-13

aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC889 Analog [ALC889 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: ALC889 Digital [ALC889 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Pulse won't start:

$ start-pulseaudio-x11
E: main.c: Daemon startup failed.
OR
sudo /etc/rc.d/pulseaudio start
:: Starting D-BUS system messagebus                            [DONE]
:: Starting Hardware Abstraction Layer                         [DONE]
:: Starting pulseaudio daemon                                  [FAIL]

This is my asound.conf
# Use PulseAudio by default
pcm.!default {
  type pulse
}

ctl.!default {
  type pulse
}

# Explicit PulseAudio device
pcm.pulse {
  type pulse
}

ctl.pulse {
  type pulse
}

# vim:set ft=alsaconf:

     If there is more that I can provide, please let me know. Also I would like to get sound working in a few apps specifically: xbmc, Miro and World of Warcraft through Wine. WoW is fully funtioning, albeit without sound.

FYI, this all works on a WIndows 7 install on another partition on this computer, so I know the hardware is ok.

TIA

Last edited by hamptonids (2010-12-18 17:09:28)

Darksoul71

Member

Registered: 2010-04-12

Posts: 319

Re: HDMI Audio (ALSA) VS pulling my hair out. Which will win?

I have been fighting with HDMI audio for a few days, since installing it. I am pulling my hair out trying to get it to work. Any takers wanna help?

Well, it would have helped if you documented your trials and the results.

Personally I would eliminate PA in the first place.
- Set up a pure ALSA system without any PA-specific configuration changes
- Connect the HDMI port of your graphic port to a Display which you know that sound over HDMI works (in example by using Windows 7)
- Follow the ALSA wiki on trouble shooting: http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php/TroubleShooting
- Check the ALSA module page for the features available for your HDMI module

This should help you to find the source of the problem.

---

My archlinux x86_64 host:
AMD E350 (2x1.6GHz) / 8GB DDR3 RAM / GeForce 9500GT (passive) / Arch running from 16GB USB Stick

hamptonids

Member

Registered: 2010-11-05

Posts: 5

Re: HDMI Audio (ALSA) VS pulling my hair out. Which will win?

Ok, so I have had some time to devote to this. Since this was a a new install of Arch I decided to just reinstall again to wipe out anything that I might have added to cause further compication to the solution. I am sure I am missing something obvious as aplay shows the card:

$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 9: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

To restate, my system is:
MB - Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R   (onboard audio is disabled)
Graphics card - GTX 470
LED HDTV - Vizio XVT473SV

My Alsa-info output is here:
www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=04cdccbef389c4663f9db42d4d4a754321bf3fc3

I have tried numerous howtos, tutorials and posts to attempt to solve this issue, but no luck. Here are a couple of them:
http://newyork.ubuntuforums.org/showthr … ?t=1565479
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HO … ,_or_GT240

     A couple of things worth noting:
All four channels are Mmuted (MM) each time I boot within alsamixer. There are no sliders on the four channels. They are either muted or not.
I have the HDMI input in HDMI1 on the TV, but I can move it to another if needed.

Since I am really unsure what would be needed beyond the alsa-info output I will hold off throwing irrelivant system logs and output, Please let me know what information would be helpful and I will post it.

     I would really like to get this solved, so anyone willing to give a shot at helping me solve it would be most appreciated.

TIA