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#1 2009-04-14 17:45:42

benji.ijneb
Member
Registered: 2008-12-13
Posts: 84

Sound issues on HP G60

Hi, i'm running arch on a new HP G60 laptop, and so far next to everything is working flawlessly (except for suspend to ram, but that's a matter for another day!

On the vista partition and when i tried running a ubuntu 8.10 live cd, sound is great, but ATM on arch the quality is very poor (especially with loud sounds)

lspci | grep -i audio
gives me

00:07.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] High Definition Audio (rev a1)

and
aplay -l
gives me

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 0: CONEXANT Analog [CONEXANT Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 1: Conexant Digital [Conexant Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

on the KDE multimedia settings thing, playing sounds via "ESD", and "jack audio connection kit" both fall back to "HDA Nvidia (CONEXANT Analog)", which gives this poor sound quality. there are also options to play audio using "HDA Nvidia (CONEXANT Digital)" and "HDA Nvidia, Nvidia HDMI (HDMI Audio Output)". When i try to use these, there are no error messages recieved, but also no sound output. I'm confuddled.

thanks in advance for your help!

Last edited by benji.ijneb (2009-04-14 18:07:13)

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#2 2009-04-14 18:23:25

Inxsible
Forum Fellow
From: Chicago
Registered: 2008-06-09
Posts: 9,183

Re: Sound issues on HP G60

What sound system are you using ?

ALSA or OSSv4?


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There's no such thing as a stupid question, but there sure are a lot of inquisitive idiots !

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#3 2009-04-14 18:37:03

benji.ijneb
Member
Registered: 2008-12-13
Posts: 84

Re: Sound issues on HP G60

thanks for the quick reply!
I'm using alsa, as far as i know

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#4 2009-04-14 18:47:20

Inxsible
Forum Fellow
From: Chicago
Registered: 2008-06-09
Posts: 9,183

Re: Sound issues on HP G60

Well as far as I know, ALSA is supposed to work better with HD Audio. Although OSSv4 does have much better quality with other sound cards. I use OSSv4 and I have seen a marked improvement in sound quality than when I was using ALSA. When it comes to quality, its always the drivers that need to be used correctly.

You could try out OSS and see if it works better on your machine. I am not sure why the Ubuntu 8.10 would also have a better sound quality than Arch. Do you know if Ubuntu live cd is using OSS or ALSA?

Try to see what drivers the Ubuntu live cd is using and maybe you can compare the two. If it is also using ALSA, you could try checking the version numbers as well.

Last edited by Inxsible (2009-04-14 18:47:36)


Forum Rules

There's no such thing as a stupid question, but there sure are a lot of inquisitive idiots !

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#5 2009-04-14 19:15:59

benji.ijneb
Member
Registered: 2008-12-13
Posts: 84

Re: Sound issues on HP G60

great!

I'll try out OSS tonight, despite the known problems with HDA cards.
I'm pretty sure that ubuntu uses alsa, but it's also bound to have older versions than arch - it's almost 6 months old now

I'll get back to you smile

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#6 2009-04-14 20:18:13

benji.ijneb
Member
Registered: 2008-12-13
Posts: 84

Re: Sound issues on HP G60

gaah!

OSS isn't too friendly. When playing audio you can just about make out the tune underneath the  painful, loud crunching static sounds. I tried some of the troubleshooting stuff, but to no avail. Pity...

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#7 2009-04-22 20:08:48

benji.ijneb
Member
Registered: 2008-12-13
Posts: 84

Re: Sound issues on HP G60

any other ideas?

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#8 2009-04-22 20:12:44

fijam
Member
Registered: 2009-02-03
Posts: 244
Website

Re: Sound issues on HP G60

With alsa, make sure that PCM does not get positive dB gain (it should be below 74).

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#9 2009-04-25 09:37:53

benji.ijneb
Member
Registered: 2008-12-13
Posts: 84

Re: Sound issues on HP G60

fijam wrote:

With alsa, make sure that PCM does not get positive dB gain (it should be below 74).

doesn't seem to make any difference...
found this:
http://www.linuxant.com/alsa-driver/
looks promisimg, but i'm clueless as to how i should install the patch. any ideas?

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#10 2009-06-30 20:13:56

benji.ijneb
Member
Registered: 2008-12-13
Posts: 84

Re: Sound issues on HP G60

i know that this is quite late, but i've recently discovered that it's only the left speaker which i get these problems.
any ideas?

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