Arch Linux

cesarramsan

Member

Registered: 2012-06-20

Posts: 5

No sound through HDMI in Radeon 6870

Hello People from Arch Community

I have a small problem getting sound out of the HDMI of my video card.

When I do

lspci | grep AMD

I get:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Barts XT [ATI Radeon HD 6800 Series]
01:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Barts HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6800 Series]

So the kernel finds the device. But when I do

aplay -l

I get:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC887 Analog [ALC887 Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: ALC887 Digital [ALC887 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I noticed that the HDMI out was listed as Audio Generic, when it should be identified as HDA ATI HDMI. Whenever I choose the HDMI output through alsamixer I only get a s/pdif and I cannot modify anything. I remember that some months before when I installed Arch for the first time sound through the HDMI was working and the audio device was correctly identified. Could it be a new module or kernel path that broke the audio?

I tried using the radeon.sound=1 flag but I still could not get sound out of the HDMI. Even worst, when I use the radeon.sound=1 parameter, my screen display a 5 pixel width purple line at the left border of the screen and the rest of the screen gets squeezed. It is not too bad but still makes text look blurry.

Could someone help me please?

Extra info: it is not hardware related, sound works fine in windows
I am not a total beginner, I know my way in the CLI but still I lack a lot of knowledge.
Another tip, around the same time, my framebuffer decoration and splash(fbcondecor, fbsplah) stopped working, I don't know if it is related.

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,988

Re: No sound through HDMI in Radeon 6870

You may find this article >Here< to be of interest.  I don't know much about Radeon audio but for your 6870 that may seem to be of relevance.

Are you using the open-source driver or the proprietary with an older X.org?  With the above article, the open-source audio seems to be slated for kernel 3.5.

Last edited by headkase (2012-06-20 06:48:23)

cesarramsan

Member

Registered: 2012-06-20

Posts: 5

Re: No sound through HDMI in Radeon 6870

I forgot to mention. I am using the open source drivers. I will check the article and post results.

Thanks

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,988

Re: No sound through HDMI in Radeon 6870

You're welcome.