Arch Linux

pradtf

Member

Registered: 2009-06-10

Posts: 149

SOLVED sound working through PCH but no sound with usb headphones

i stopped using gnome, so i have to get things to work myself.

cat /proc/asound/cards gives 3 items:

0 [PCH            ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH
                      HDA Intel PCH at 0xdf420000 irq 138
1 [NVidia         ]: HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia
                      HDA NVidia at 0xdf080000 irq 17
2 [Device         ]: USB-Audio - USB Audio Device
                      C-Media Electronics Inc. USB Audio Device at usb-0000:00:14.0-1, full speed

the pch is working fine through headphones (and will through speakers too i presume).

however, the usb-audio is producing no sound at all except on:
speaker-test -D default:Device -c 8

i've tried to choose it through alsamixer F6, but that doesn't work. i thought F6 is how to set the default device, but it seems to always stick to PCH (whether i do it as user or superuser).

the usb headphones are seen, but not accessed (except on the speaker test), because then it goes directly to Device (and bypasses the PCH stranglehold).

appreciate ideas on how to troubleshoot this, since i'm not sure what to do from the archwiki or how to see errors.
specifically, how to set the default device.

Last edited by pradtf (2022-05-17 03:31:31)

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in friendship,
prad

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,944

Re: SOLVED sound working through PCH but no sound with usb headphones

If you are using pulseaudio/pipewire check pavucontrol for an easy to use GUI or check what your fallback device is set to with

pactl list sinks

and change with

pactl set-default-sink $sinkname$

do not inherently rely on the representations given by alsamixer/amixer as they will give you an incomplete picture if you are actually using a sound daemon to manipulate your devices.

If you aren't using those then see https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Advanc … sound_card (again, do not follow this if you are actually using pulseaudio/pipewire you will only create conflicts)

alsamixer has always been just a mixer utility and no selection there has any effect on any default device selection considerations.

pradtf

Member

Registered: 2009-06-10

Posts: 149

Re: SOLVED sound working through PCH but no sound with usb headphones

thx for this v1del.

i changed ~/.asoundrc
from

defaults.pcm.card 0
defaults.ctl.card 0

to

defaults.pcm.card 2
defaults.ctl.card 2

(and back again just to be sure).

alsa needs to be 'restarted' which is really not possible because it isn't a daemon
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Talk:A … chitecture

so i used alsactl nrestore [edit 22-05-15: this is not necessary as V1del points out below]
and then restarted the application.

i can go back and forth now quite conveniently.

Last edited by pradtf (2022-05-16 05:37:19)

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in friendship,
prad

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,944

Re: SOLVED sound working through PCH but no sound with usb headphones

alsactl restore shouldn't really be necessary, the file is reevaluated each time a new ALSA using application appears, so switching the file around between application restarts should be sufficient.