Realtek ALC880 - Alsa sound issues

cap · 2015-10-14 09:41:48

Hi all,

I'm trying to get the sound working on an old laptop (Terra Aura 1200).
Using alsamixer, I can see the sound card but only 'Beep' is active.

It wasn't a big surprise then, that the speakertest wouldn't even run

speaker-test -c 2
...
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1024:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave

During my research online, I found that issues with the Realtek ALC880 seem to be pretty common. Unfortunately the usual fix to set the mode parameter like this:

rmmod snd_hda_intel ; modprobe snd_hda_intel model=auto

didn't work for me. I tried all of the model settings suggested on the list on the alsa page. Using most of them, there was only 'Beep' in alsamixer again. Only the *stack models gave me sliders for the usual outputs. However, there is no sound output whatsoever - speakertest ran without any warnings/errors but without output as well.

I found a thread, a couple years old at least, suggesting to use the lts kernel. Even though I figured that this wouldn't work anymore, I still gave it a try, and did all of the above with the lts kernel loaded. Still not a peep, though.

I do know that it's not an actual hardware problem, as the sound works at least with an old Linux Mint 12 live cd. If there's a way to get the setup info from that somehow translated to arch, maybe that would work somehow, but seems like a long shot

Hope you can help out or give me a few pointers on what to try next?
Am I correct to assume, that using an (really) old kernel might help, since some previous lts kernel seemed to have fixed the issue for a few other people?

a few hopefully helpful outputs:
uname -r

4.2.3-1-ARCH

cat /proc/asound/modules

0 snd_hda_intel

grep Codec /proc/asound/card*/codec*

/proc/asound/card0/codec#0:Codec: Realtek ALC880
/proc/asound/card0/codec#1:Codec: Conexant ID 2bfa

lsmod | grep '^snd' | column -t

snd_hda_intel          28672  0
snd_hda_codec_hdmi     45056  1
snd_hda_codec_realtek  65536  1
snd_hda_codec_generic  65536  1  snd_hda_codec_realtek
snd_hda_codec          94208  4  snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_intel
snd_hda_core           45056  5  snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep              16384  1  snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm                77824  4  snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_core
snd_timer              28672  1  snd_pcm
snd                    57344  8  snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hwdep,snd_timer,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_pcm,snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel

ls -l /dev/snd

insgesamt 0
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root       60 14. Okt 10:32 by-path
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  2 14. Okt 10:32 controlC0
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  3 14. Okt 10:32 hwC0D0
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  4 14. Okt 10:32 hwC0D1
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  1 14. Okt 09:46 seq
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 33 14. Okt 09:46 timer

dmesg output when rmmod and modprobing (with no mode parameter) again:

[ 3456.961178] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0: autoconfig for ALC880: line_outs=0 (0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0) type:line
[ 3456.961189] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    speaker_outs=0 (0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[ 3456.961194] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    hp_outs=0 (0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[ 3456.961198] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    mono: mono_out=0x1e
[ 3456.961201] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    inputs:

dmesg output when rmmod and modprobing (with mode=3stack) again:

[ 3538.769224] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0: autoconfig for ALC880: line_outs=1 (0x14/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0) type:line
[ 3538.769234] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    speaker_outs=0 (0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[ 3538.769239] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    hp_outs=1 (0x19/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[ 3538.769243] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    mono: mono_out=0x0
[ 3538.769247] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    inputs:
[ 3538.769252] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:      Rear Mic=0x18
[ 3538.769256] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:      Front Mic=0x1b
[ 3538.769260] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:      Line=0x1a
[ 3538.846578] input: HDA Digital PCBeep as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input16
[ 3538.847653] input: HDA Intel Rear Mic as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input17
[ 3538.847802] input: HDA Intel Front Mic as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input18
[ 3538.847947] input: HDA Intel Line as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input19
[ 3538.848096] input: HDA Intel Line Out as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input20

cap · 2015-10-15 20:05:36

Since my only safe bet seems to be an older kernel, I've been testing a few live-cds from other distros as I wasn't able to find iso's for archlinux kernel 3.3--
Using Fedora, the sound worked out of the box up to FC17(kernel 3.3.4-5), in FC18 it was busted as well (3.6.10).

So, now I could just use either FC17 or Linux Mint 13, but I'd prefer to stick with arch.

It seems, I have two options, but I'm stumped with both.

1. Get an old iso - not sure how to since torrents are dead and couldn't find a mirror that still has it.
2. Fix the problem using current kernel - well, that would be perfect, but I don't know what else to try.

Hope you guys have many bright ideas!

Last edited by cap (2015-10-15 20:05:57)

Arch Linux

#1 2015-10-14 09:41:48

Realtek ALC880 - Alsa sound issues

#2 2015-10-15 20:05:36

Re: Realtek ALC880 - Alsa sound issues

Board footer