[Solved] No sound (only headphones) on Thinkpad X200 Tablet

Sachiel · 2011-04-01 18:07:35

A few years ago, I installed Arch on a Thinkpad X200 Tablet, and everything was fine until a few day ago the HD had to be replaced. I was happy with system and the only think I remember being a headache was the touchscreen.

With the new HD, I decided to reinstall and not keeping config files, for a complete fresh start. One of the first things I did was setup sound, as it was really easy and worked just out-of-box with ALSA. After that, I installed some apps and the DE (Gnome this time, I've been previously working with only a WM, Awesome). I remeber even watching and listening a flash video with no problems.

Today, I keep installing some tweaks: GDM, laptop-tools, HDAPS, setting a console font... and suddenly, I noticed sound was not working anymore. Looked at alsamixer, and everything looks fine. Booting on init level 3 the problem persists, so it's not a Gnome issue. I tried blacklisting the more recent modules and daemons, but no sound. I tried plugging some headphones, and hey, the headphones work!

After reviewing the Arch wiki, Thinkwiki, googling, and trying several workarounds (most of them settings at modprobe.conf, and unmutting everything), I'm still with no sound, and very puzzled for the situation. I would greatly appreciate any help on this, or any clue to keep researching.

$ lspci|grep -i audio
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)

$ lsmod |grep snd
snd_seq_dummy           1119  0 
snd_seq_oss            25232  0 
snd_hda_codec_conexant    35779  1 
snd_seq_midi_event      4568  1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                41912  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device          4409  3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss            33950  0 
snd_mixer_oss          15366  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_hda_intel          18988  1 
snd_hda_codec          64796  2 snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep               4804  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm                59496  3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
snd_timer              15687  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc          6053  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
snd                    43987  14 snd_seq_oss,snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_timer,thinkpad_acpi
soundcore               4961  1 snd

$ cat /proc/asound/modules
 0 snd_hda_intel
29 thinkpad_acpi

Last edited by Sachiel (2011-04-02 11:58:31)

joseperezc · 2011-04-01 20:56:47

Hi, something similar happened me a time ago when i was using ubuntu.
One day readed in a random blog that said if you don't want hear the beep "bios stiled" in ubuntu when you press delete you had to disable pcspkr module I did that and never had the sound back in the Pc Speakers any sound...
So I installed arch and for sound only installed alsa-oss and alsa-utils, and i was amazed because the pc speakers worked again, (i thinked that it had misticaly broked)....so in my experience

-For sound you don't need more than pacman -S alsa-{utils,oss}
-recheck your /etc/rc.conf and be sure that you are loading pcspkr if you don't have module autoload, and if you have autoload check if is'n there with an !pcspkr, and erase it.
-don't believe all that an ubuntu user said (I was one lol).

Good luck.

Sachiel · 2011-04-02 10:20:06

Hola joseperezc, thank you for the recommendations.

Installing alsa-oss -> Nothing changes.

pcspkr is loaded by default:

$ lsmod |grep pcspkr
pcspkr                  1367  0

I also tried blacklisting it, but no results.

I also tried this conf:

$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf 
options snd slots=snd-hda-intel
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
options snd-hda-intel model=auto
options snd-hda-intel enable_msi=1

But still no sound.

Btw, atm I have:

$ pacman -Qs alsa
alocal/alsa-lib 1.0.24.1-1
    An alternative implementation of Linux sound support
local/alsa-utils 1.0.24.2-1
    An alternative implementation of Linux sound support

I also tried muting the SPDIF channels (I read that sometimes if they are enabled, the conflict with analog output), but no changes. And the sad thing is that it was working before... I'm thinking on uninstalling everything step by step...

Sachiel · 2011-04-02 11:57:36

Ok, this is really weird. I put the default coniguration I had at the beginning. That is, not options on modprobe.conf or any special configuration or modules order/blacklisting. Reboot again, no sound.

I recovered the old hard disk, and installed it. I booted on the old Arch install to look at the config files... and the sound was not working! I started to think that it was a hardware problem, but the I tried to boot WIndows 7 from the old HD. The sound was muted, I unmuted it, and checked it was working, so no hardware problem. Then I reboot again to Arch... and sound was working fine!

I installed the new HD again, booted to Arch, and sound is working now... I also have Windows 7 on this new HD, probably I muted sound when working with it. Is it possible that Windows mutes something on the sound card that alsa cannot unmute?

joseperezc · 2011-04-02 18:23:08

Wow, maybe, like the hwclock.
But Is great that you fixed it
cheers

Arch Linux

#1 2011-04-01 18:07:35

[Solved] No sound (only headphones) on Thinkpad X200 Tablet

#2 2011-04-01 20:56:47

Re: [Solved] No sound (only headphones) on Thinkpad X200 Tablet

#3 2011-04-02 10:20:06

Re: [Solved] No sound (only headphones) on Thinkpad X200 Tablet

#4 2011-04-02 11:57:36

Re: [Solved] No sound (only headphones) on Thinkpad X200 Tablet

#5 2011-04-02 18:23:08

Re: [Solved] No sound (only headphones) on Thinkpad X200 Tablet

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