Arch Linux

thedownstem

Member

Registered: 2011-04-19

Posts: 4

[SOLVED] Only mono audio from speakers

I have a pair of studio monitors hooked up to the small green jack on the back of the motherboard.

Initially I was not able to get sound output from the snd-hda-intel driver, but eventually got it to play through oss, and then alsa with and without pulseaudio.  In every single case it only outputs sound to my left speaker, and I'm not sure if this is just this is just a single channels worth of audio or the stereo is being downmixed into mono.

The speakers also have a usb output, but I have been completely unable to get audio output from that.  Any ideas on getting both channels of audio through both speakers?

Last edited by thedownstem (2011-04-22 20:12:31)

jlindgren

Member

Registered: 2011-02-27

Posts: 260

Re: [SOLVED] Only mono audio from speakers

Have you run alsamixer and checked that nothing is muted?

thedownstem

Member

Registered: 2011-04-19

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] Only mono audio from speakers

Yep

Pajaro

Member

Registered: 2004-04-21

Posts: 884

Re: [SOLVED] Only mono audio from speakers

Just rutinary checks:
- In the BIOS, make sure you have your soudncard to work as HD and not AC'97.
- Setup your soundcard "Channel Mode" to work with two channels.
- Make sure the other speaker works. The common check with RCA connectors is to swap channels.
- Make sure the cable works. Try with another cable.
- Launch jack with qjackctl. It gives you detailed output of what's going on with your soundcard when jack initializes. It may give you a clue.
- Check your alsa configuration (/etc/asound.conf and ~/.asoundrc)
- If you are using front speaker plug, make sure it is properly connected to the mother board. If don't, check if the front pannel suffers from the same condition.
- I don't think this can help at all, but it is another check. If everything seems right at this point, launch a program that can send output to jack (most programs do if you tell them to) and check with patchage (or qjackctl, but patchage is clearer if you press Ctrl + G) how the connections are created.

Also:
- Try an alternate operating system (both ubuntu and windows). If both suffer from the same condition I vote for broken soldering/connector in your mother board.

Last edited by Pajaro (2011-04-20 06:50:16)

thedownstem

Member

Registered: 2011-04-19

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] Only mono audio from speakers

Ah well I've fixed it by going through usb.  Didn't know how to set default sound card to usb; apparently with pulseaudio it can be done in the playback tab using pavucontrol. 

I'm guessing single channel output from the audio jack is resulting from either motherboard issues or driver incompatibility (Supposedly 889a chipset drivers are buggy in linux).