Arch Linux

psyflash

Member

Registered: 2008-12-23

Posts: 7

Sound not working. Alsamixer displays only one bar (Master),

Hi all,

I have used archlinux for some time, but since I've upgraded my desktop computer, it has me puzzled.

My specs:

lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset DRAM Controller (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5
00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) HD Audio Controller
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Port 1
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Port 5
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Port 6
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 90)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JIB (ICH10) LPC Interface Controller
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) 4 port SATA IDE Controller
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) SMBus Controller
00:1f.5 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) 2 port SATA IDE Controller
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G80 [GeForce GTX 260] (rev a1)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 02)
03:00.0 IDE interface: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE6101 single-port PATA133 interface (rev b2)
05:02.0 Multimedia controller: Philips Semiconductors SAA7134/SAA7135HL Video Broadcast Decoder (rev 01)

It loads this modules for sound:

MODULES=(snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm-oss snd-hwdep snd-page-alloc snd-pcm snd-timer snd snd-pcsp snd-hda-intel soundcore)

All seems well. However, when I load alsamixer, I only see one bar (Master). It is not muted, but when I use aplay, or any other media program... no sound.

Based on suggestions found using the forumsearch and google, I have run alsaconf. as root, I do have sound in windows, and when I try a player that displays sound processing, like xmms does, there seems to bee something happening.

My mainboard is Asus P5QL, with VIA chipset for sound.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Last edited by psyflash (2008-12-23 21:22:24)

sand_man

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2008-06-10

Posts: 2,164

Re: Sound not working. Alsamixer displays only one bar (Master),

I don't use alsa but I noticed on my brother's Ubuntu machine that running alsamixer as a user only shows the master and running as root shows all of them (5.1 channel).

---

psyflash

Member

Registered: 2008-12-23

Posts: 7

Re: Sound not working. Alsamixer displays only one bar (Master),

Thank you for your reply .

Running alsamixer as root and as a user behaves the same for me, though. I should mention that when I use an audioplayer, suddenly a pcm bar is added. So now two bars are visible.
When I reload the module (snd_hda_intel and/or snd-hda-intel) the second bar is gone again.

Could it be that the card/motherboard is too new to be supported properly?

Last edited by psyflash (2008-12-24 09:29:24)

andre.ramaciotti

Member

From: Brazil

Registered: 2007-04-06

Posts: 649

Re: Sound not working. Alsamixer displays only one bar (Master),

Once I had this same problem and solved by unloading snd-pcsp (modprobe -r snd-pcsp).

---

(lambda ())

psyflash

Member

Registered: 2008-12-23

Posts: 7

Re: Sound not working. Alsamixer displays only one bar (Master),

Thanks for replying,
I tried removing all pc-speaker related modules (yours, and pcspkr). Unfortunately: no avail.

mango

Member

Registered: 2007-04-27

Posts: 29

Re: Sound not working. Alsamixer displays only one bar (Master),

Did you try adding yourself into the audio group?

as a root:

gpasswd -a USERNAME audio

Helped for me. My MoBo is Asus P5KPL.

psyflash

Member

Registered: 2008-12-23

Posts: 7

Re: Sound not working. Alsamixer displays only one bar (Master),

Hey Mango,
thanks for your reply.

My user is in the audio group, but it didn't help . Also root has no sound either (and it has my belief that the root-guy doesn't need to be in groups to have permission to use a device).

Is there other information I could supply that might help solving this issue?

Pse

Member

Registered: 2008-03-15

Posts: 413

Re: Sound not working. Alsamixer displays only one bar (Master),

You said you removed snd-pcsp, but have you blacklisted it? Try blacklisting it, then rebooting your PC, and then, when the system is up, unload and reload snd-hda-intel (this is what I had to do to get sound working).

psyflash

Member

Registered: 2008-12-23

Posts: 7

Re: Sound not working. Alsamixer displays only one bar (Master),

Nope, a no go.
I have even tried booting up ubuntu to see whether their shotgun of drivers would make a difference, but nothing. I guess I'll just have to wait for better VIA support in alsa itself.

Everyone thanks for replying. I will post a message here if I ever get it to work.

[edit]
this guy seems to be on to something. Although it is not exactly the same board, it does provide a clue. Will update findings.

Last edited by psyflash (2008-12-29 12:01:32)

psyflash

Member

Registered: 2008-12-23

Posts: 7

Re: Sound not working. Alsamixer displays only one bar (Master),

Well, I switched to oss4 and now my sound works flawlessly. If anyone has related problems and want a solution, see:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/OSS

for installation details.

FrozenFox

Member

From: College Station, TX

Registered: 2008-03-23

Posts: 422

Website

Re: Sound not working. Alsamixer displays only one bar (Master),

The reason ubuntu showed only 1 master is because it uses the pulseaudio output plugin. Uninstalling or disabling pulseaudio makes alsamixer behave as normal. However, you can simply achieve the same effect by telling alsamixer to use your card specifically, which is usually card 0. ie

alsamixer -c 0

This will work when pulseaudio is installed, and may have worked in your case. If anyone else has the same problem and doesn' want to move to oss4 yet, try that. If it works, add 'alsamixer' as an alias to that in ~/.bashrc so you dont need to remember the -c 0 part.