Arch Linux

BinRoot

Member

Registered: 2011-08-09

Posts: 2

Sound not working -- Tried everything

Just installed Arch Linux for x86_64 and have XFCE 4.8.0 up.

My problem is that audio doesn't work from the speakers.

When I plug in my headphones to the jack, I can hear the audio fine. But the speakers on my monitor won't work.
Note: every thing worked fine with Ubuntu 11.04 with the same hardware.

Here's relevant info:

lspci

aplay -l

lsmod|grep '^snd' | column -t

ls -l /dev/snd

sudo cat /proc/asound/modules

I hope I've provided enough information. I did follow the wiki on Advanced Linux Sound Architecture, yet to no avail I come to you.
Please help me out.

Last edited by jasonwryan (2011-08-09 03:28:33)

_will

Member

Registered: 2004-07-08

Posts: 123

Re: Sound not working -- Tried everything

maybe the output is muted. Check your volume mixer for any muted channels.

OR

run alsamixer from a terminal and (to remove all doubt) unmute every channel. A channel is not muted if the 00 at the bottom of the volume bar has a green background. This can be toggled by pushing 'm'. Also make sure to use the arrow keys to go as far left and right as you can. Some bars can hide out off screen.

If that doesn't work, try the function key 'f6' within alsamixer to select any other sound cards alsa has registered. The volume you need to mess with might not be default.  e.g. if somehow the default card is something like a built in webcam mic.

Esc quits alsamixer

alsamixer is included in the package alsa-utils.

I don't know if xfce4-mixer exposes all the options alsamixer does (or if it provides even more)

Edit: potentially useful check

amixer|egrep '^[^ ]|\[(off|on)\]'

or

grep -P "\t(name|value)"  /var/lib/alsa/asound.state

Last edited by _will (2011-08-09 03:41:27)

BinRoot

Member

Registered: 2011-08-09

Posts: 2

Re: Sound not working -- Tried everything

_will, I've unmuted every channel. The only card is HDA Intel.

My desktop is connected via HDMI. It has an nvidia driver. Perhaps this info is relevant?
I'm using noveau right now.

brian_panneton

Member

Registered: 2009-10-01

Posts: 13

Re: Sound not working -- Tried everything

I think it is an issue with kernel 3.0 and HDMI. My regular audio works fine but ALSA HDMI no longer works. I'm currently looking for a solution. I am using the opensource ATI driver.

_will

Member

Registered: 2004-07-08

Posts: 123

Re: Sound not working -- Tried everything

I hope video stuff wouldn't affect audio stuff. If it seems like it could, switch to vesa as a driver. I don't think this would change anything though; wasn't that what Ubuntu was using?

There was once a problem with a modem driver auto-loading and messing with audio but this kind of problem would mean no audio at all, not just no speakers.

If you have working audio (but only with headphones) and hardware known to be compatible, the issues has to be in turning on the speakers, right? Everything else works. Is there some key combination (like fn-esc for me; something in /proc/acpi/button/ ) that turns off the speakers?

Sorry, I don't think I can help any more than asking variations of "is it plugged in"