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jouissance

Member

Registered: 2015-07-15

Posts: 20

Setting up volume knob on Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1

I'm trying to get the volume knob (or some kind of volume control) to work on the card mentioned in the title, using alsa. Actually, now I'm trying to get the card to work period, because trying to get the volume knob to work using lirc managed to make the card not work at all. When I first got the card, I set it as the default card and it output sound. Then I tried following these instructions (not to the dot; I'll get to that in a sec). Suddenly, the card isn't listed with 'aplay -L' and doesn't work at all. Here are the steps I took that led to this:

first, of course, I changed my /user/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf:

options snd-usb-audio index=0
options snd-hda-intel id=Generic index=1
options snd-hda-intel id=HDMI index=2

The card output sound, but no volume control.

Then I installed lirc. It did not come with the file /usr/share/lirc/remotes/creative/lircd.conf.alsa_usb mentioned in the link above, and 'irdb-get find-driver alsa_usb' output a file that uses the Creative_RM-1500 remote that the link explicites states isn't the right configuration. So instead I found this file and copied the snippet containing the configuration for RM-1500 to /etc/lirc/lircd.conf.d/lircd.conf.alsa_usb (which I understand is the correct location now, not the location listed in the above instructions):

#
# contributed by Clemens Ladisch <clemens|ladisch.de>
#
# brand:             Creative
# model:             RM-1500
# supported devices: Sound Blaster Extigy, SB Audigy 2 NX
#
# This is for the integrated IR receiver in Creative USB audio devices
# when accessed with LIRC's alsa_usb driver (requires the snd-usb-audio
# driver from ALSA 1.0.9 or later).
#
# This file should work with the exaudio driver, too.
#

begin remote

	name	RM-1500
	bits	8
	gap 300000

	begin codes
          KEY_POWER                0x01                      #  Was: power
          KEY_1                    0x02                      #  Was: 1
          KEY_2                    0x03                      #  Was: 2
          KEY_3                    0x04                      #  Was: 3
          KEY_4                    0x05                      #  Was: 4
          KEY_5                    0x06                      #  Was: 5
          KEY_6                    0x07                      #  Was: 6
          KEY_7                    0x08                      #  Was: 7
          KEY_8                    0x09                      #  Was: 8
          KEY_9                    0x0a                      #  Was: 9
          KEY_0                    0x0b                      #  Was: 0
		cmss		0x0c
          KEY_MUTE                 0x0d                      #  Was: mute
          KEY_RECORD               0x0e                      #  Was: rec
          KEY_VOLUMEDOWN           0x0f                      #  Was: vol-
          KEY_VOLUMEUP             0x10                      #  Was: vol+
		stop-eject	0x11
          KEY_PLAYPAUSE            0x12                      #  Was: play-pause
          KEY_SLOW                 0x13                      #  Was: slow
          KEY_PREVIOUS             0x14                      #  Was: prev
          KEY_NEXT                 0x15                      #  Was: next
		step		0x16
		eax		0x17
          KEY_OPTION               0x18                      #  Was: options
		display		0x19
          KEY_ENTER                0x1a                      #  Was: return
          KEY_PLAY                 0x1b                      #  Was: start
          KEY_CANCEL               0x1c                      #  Was: cancel
          KEY_UP                   0x1d                      #  Was: up
          KEY_LEFT                 0x1e                      #  Was: left
          KEY_OK                   0x1f                      #  Was: ok
          KEY_RIGHT                0x20                      #  Was: right
          KEY_DOWN                 0x21                      #  Was: down
	end codes

end remote

I ran 'lircd -H alsa_usb -d hw:S51'. The volume knob didn't work. I ran 'irw' and got no output from spinning the knob. Then I rebooted.

After booting back up, alsa no longer recognizes the device. I tried deleting /etc/lirc/lircd.conf.d/lircd.conf.alsa_usb. No change. Please help, thanks.

Edit: output of 'dmesg | grep snd':

[    7.823069] snd_hda_intel 0000:00:01.1: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[    7.823291] snd_hda_intel 0000:00:01.1: Force to non-snoop mode
[    9.006540] snd-usb-audio 3-1:1.0: cannot find the slot for index 0 (range 0-2), error: -16
[    9.006722] snd-usb-audio: probe of 3-1:1.0 failed with error -16
[    9.006841] usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio

Last edited by jouissance (2015-07-25 04:35:22)

jouissance

Member

Registered: 2015-07-15

Posts: 20

Re: Setting up volume knob on Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1

I got the USB sound card to be recognized again by adding this to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf:

options snd slots=snd-usb-audio,snd-hda-intel

So now I'm back at square one, trying to figure out how to get volume control.