Arch Linux

hunter_thom

Member

Registered: 2011-05-02

Posts: 16

Sound drivers disappear at reboot

Sorry if this was already answered, or if it's a really simple fix but I've done my research and havent found anything (sorry if I just missed it).

So, several weeks back, suddenly, the sound on my arch linux laptop stopped working. I was too busy to work on it at the time, but recently I had time so I got working on it.

I found the problem right away: I had no sound drivers. So I issued:

[root@myhost ~]# pacman -S kernel26

This fixed the issue, as I issued a 'modprobe -l | grep snd' and found the drivers. Then I reboot.

After I reboot, the drivers are gone. I reinstalled the kernel again, rebooted, same deal. Each time I reboot, I get:

[root@myhost ~]# modprobe -l | grep snd
[root@myhost ~]# 

and again it's fixed by reinstalling the kernel.

Any ideas? I'm not sure if this helps, but here are a few more notes:

1. Sound kinda still works. Meaning, I can start oss and get sound coming out, but within KDE, my original sound cards are not recognized. Also, ALSA cannot start because:

[hunter@myhost ~]$ sudo /etc/rc.d/alsa start
Password: 
:: Restoring ALSA Levels                                                                                      [BUSY] /usr/sbin/alsactl: load_state:1625: No soundcards found...
                                                                                                              [FAIL] 
[hunter@myhost ~]$ 

2. At the same time I noticed this, the play, mute, volup, and voldown buttons built into my laptop (not keyboard shortcuts, separate buttons on the HP laptop) also stopped working. So, for example, if I play an mp3 it plays out the speaker, but the volume buttons dont work. It only works if I start ossxmix and change the settings there.

Anyways, sorry if its a stupid question, but I'm not sure what to do. I'm a linux sysadmin, and I've got a lot of experience with RHEL/CentOS, Ubuntu/Debian and SUSE, but not much with Arch so this could just be me being stupid. But any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Last edited by hunter_thom (2011-06-02 03:53:44)

hunter_thom

Member

Registered: 2011-05-02

Posts: 16

Re: Sound drivers disappear at reboot

Oh, sorry but I forgot to mention: the device is recognized (last entry below):

[hunter@myhost ~]$ lspci
00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP67 Memory Controller (rev a2)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP67 ISA Bridge (rev a2)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP67 SMBus (rev a2)
00:01.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP67 Memory Controller (rev a2)
00:01.3 Co-processor: nVidia Corporation MCP67 Co-processor (rev a2)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP67 OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a2)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP67 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a2)
00:04.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP67 OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a2)
00:04.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP67 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a2)
00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP67 IDE Controller (rev a1)
00:07.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP67 High Definition Audio (rev a1)
...

Last edited by hunter_thom (2011-06-02 03:53:58)

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: Sound drivers disappear at reboot

Doublecheck https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Al … are_loaded and https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Al … at_startup

stryder

Member

Registered: 2009-02-28

Posts: 500

Re: Sound drivers disappear at reboot

I might have read you wrong but you seem to have installed oss, which will remove the alsa modules, thus no snd modules. So remove oss if you want alsa. If you are using oss make sure oss in in your daemons.

hunter_thom

Member

Registered: 2011-05-02

Posts: 16

Re: Sound drivers disappear at reboot

No you didnt misread my post, I am using OSS, and so Alsa modules are not loaded and alsa isn't running.

I wasn't aware that OSS will remove the Alsa modules, so that must be my problem and I'll work on getting Alsa working instead of OSS.

Thank you very much for the pointers and information!

stryder

Member

Registered: 2009-02-28

Posts: 500

Re: Sound drivers disappear at reboot

You're welcome. Just uninstall oss (pacman -R oss), that will restore the alsa modules. Reboot.

hunter_thom

Member

Registered: 2011-05-02

Posts: 16

Re: Sound drivers disappear at reboot

Awesome, will do. Thanks again.