[SOLVED] "alsaconf" broke my sound.

guriinii · 2011-05-12 08:45:58

Hi, I've been having problems some strange background noises for a while, so I did a quick search and found this thread, which to my knowledge fixed the problem. So, I rebooted and the noises were still there, then I checked out the ALSA Arch wiki and read the configuration section. Realising what I may have just done I tested my sound only to find I had killed it.

As far as I know it has broken udev and modprobe.conf (which for some reason is empty). I tried to solve the problem myself but I'm feeling a little lost and a little out of my depth.

Can anyone please help?

Last edited by guriinii (2011-05-12 10:19:58)

bangkok_manouel · 2011-05-12 10:11:39

don't worry, udev has not been broken and an empty /etc/modprobe.conf is not uncommon. check under /etc/modprobe.d/ you'll most likely find your sound configuration.
try to run alsamixer and check if any channel is muted.

guriinii · 2011-05-12 10:19:34

bangkok_manouel wrote:

try to run alsamixer and check if any channel is muted.

OMG what a moron I am! Trying to fix something whilst extremely tired is a bad idea. Thank you, I would never have checked it. I'll mark this as solved, but my problem with the background electrical interference is still present and annoying.

bangkok_manouel · 2011-05-12 11:32:52

what you could try:
* try running kernel26-lts and see if the issue is there. if not, at least we know it's kernel related and we can start chasing the bug.
* pass your sound card model to the driver to see if it helps.

guriinii · 2011-05-12 11:35:30

bangkok_manouel wrote:

what you could try:
* try running kernel26-lts and see if the issue is there. if not, at least we know it's kernel related and we can start chasing the bug.
* pass your sound card model to the driver to see if it helps.

How do I do these?

bangkok_manouel · 2011-05-12 11:49:46

guriinii wrote:

bangkok_manouel wrote:
what you could try:
* try running kernel26-lts and see if the issue is there. if not, at least we know it's kernel related and we can start chasing the bug.
* pass your sound card model to the driver to see if it helps.
How do I do these?

for the kernel:

# pacman -S kernel26-lts

then edit your boot loader configuration accordingly to add a new entry (I guess you should be able to find that in the wiki. If not, let us know)

for the module option, let us know which is your sound card first. basically, you should have something like this, for example for an hd audio card, in /etc/modprobe.conf or /etc/modprobe.d/*-sound.conf:

options snd-hda-intel model=auto

auto is default but you can change it to match your specific sound card, it sometimes helps.

guriinii · 2011-05-12 12:58:07

bangkok_manouel wrote:

edit your boot loader configuration accordingly to add a new entry (I guess you should be able to find that in the wiki. If not, let us know)
for the module option, let us know which is your sound card first. basically, you should have something like this, for example for an hd audio card, in /etc/modprobe.conf or /etc/modprobe.d/*-sound.conf:
options snd-hda-intel model=auto
auto is default but you can change it to match your specific sound card, it sometimes helps.

Done both but I need help with the kernel. When I boot kernel26-lts I get this error:

Waiting 10 seconds for device /dev/sda
Root device '/dev/sda' doesn't exist. Attempting to create it.
ERROR: Unable to determine major/minor number of root device '/dev/sda'.

Here is my /boot/grub/menu.lst:

# (0) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/d2ed0ea5-bec9-4012-a4b3-4b6f1381c93f ro
initrd /kernel26.img vga=773

# (1) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux Fallback
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/d2ed0ea5-bec9-4012-a4b3-4b6f1381c93f ro
initrd /kernel26-fallback.img

# (2) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux-lts
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda ro
initrd /kernel26-lts.img vga=773

# (3) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux-lts Fallback
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda ro
initrd /kernel26-lts-fallback.img

I've also tried 'root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/d2ed0ea5-bec9-4012-a4b3-4b6f1381c93f ro', 'root=/dev/sd** ro'

bangkok_manouel · 2011-05-12 13:09:24

# (2) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux-lts
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda ro
initrd /kernel26-lts.img vga=773

vmlinuz26 should be vmlinuz26-lts or something (check your /boot directory). same goes for the fallback entry

/dev/sda should be /dev/sdaX or uuid as you tried <-- change to your root partition

for the module option, that was just an example, what actually is your sound card?

guriinii · 2011-05-12 14:39:38

'vmlinuz26-lts' worked. I get no background noise until udev starts up, same as before. This is my output for lspci:

00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.1 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 0 (rev a2)
00:00.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 1 (rev a2)
00:00.3 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 5 (rev a2)
00:00.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 4 (rev a2)
00:00.5 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.6 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 3 (rev a2)
00:00.7 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 2 (rev a2)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:03.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:05.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation C51 [GeForce 6150 LE] (rev a2)
00:09.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:0a.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 LPC Bridge (rev a3)
00:0a.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP51 SMBus (rev a3)
00:0a.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Memory Controller 0 (rev a3)
00:0b.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:0b.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:0e.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev a1)
00:0f.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev a1)
00:10.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 PCI Bridge (rev a2)
00:10.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP51 High Definition Audio (rev a2)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
04:07.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)

guriinii · 2011-05-12 16:56:34

That was badly worded, I apologize if their was any confusion but my background noise still exists. When the computer is booting up it is silent until udev starts up and you can hear the computer grinding away.

bangkok_manouel · 2011-05-12 18:26:25

guriinii wrote:

That was badly worded, I apologize if their was any confusion but my background noise still exists. When the computer is booting up it is silent until udev starts up and you can hear the computer grinding away.

as udev is loading the modules, try to unload them one by one to be sure about who is the culprit.

also, options snd-hda-intel model=auto should work as it seems you have a hda card. you could check the output of:

$ grep -iR codec /proc/asound/

and see if there's any match here http://git.alsa-project.org/?p=alsa-ker … xt;hb=HEAD
if yes, try to replace auto by the correct model.

totally random: can you try to mute any input channel to see if this makes any change?

guriinii · 2011-05-12 18:54:57

So just to clarify before I do something silly you want me to unload these one by one:

#hwdetect --modules
MODULES=(button processor video floppy cdrom tpm_bios tpm tpm_tis tpm_tis amd64_edac_mod edac_core edac_mce_amd dcdbas drm_kms_helper drm nouveau ttm hid k8temp i2c-algo-bit i2c-nforce2 i2c-core evdev pcspkr psmouse serio_raw mmc_core pci_hotplug shpchp ssb nv_tco crc-ccitt snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm-oss snd-hwdep snd snd-page-alloc snd-pcm snd-timer snd-hda-codec snd-hda-intel soundcore scsi_mod sata_nv b44 mii mac80211 rfkill rt2800lib rt2800usb rt2x00lib rt2x00usb cfg80211 rt2870sta pcmcia_core pcmcia usbhid usbcore ehci-hcd ohci-hcd option usbserial usb_wwan sd_mod sr_mod st sg)

So, to do this would I need to blacklist one of the them, then reboot? Or is there an easier way?

Oh, I don't have any input channels unmuted.

bangkok_manouel · 2011-05-12 19:07:12

run

$ lsmod

to get the list of loaded modules. you can use

# modprobe -r <module>

to unload modules.
some modules depend on other ones so the removal order may be important

Last edited by bangkok_manouel (2011-05-12 19:08:18)

guriinii · 2011-05-17 15:08:09

Hi,

I have removed modules that I'm able to remove and the noise is still there. I'm really stuck.

SanskritFritz · 2011-05-17 15:19:21

Are you sure, it is no hardware problem?

guriinii · 2011-05-17 16:17:23

SanskritFritz wrote:

Are you sure, it is no hardware problem?

It could be, but honestly, I have no idea. I'll try a different distro on live usb.

guriinii · 2011-05-17 16:49:22

Yep, hardware problem. If anyone can point me to a decent hardware forum or has any advice, it'd be very helpful. I know nothing about hardware.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-05-12 08:45:58

[SOLVED] "alsaconf" broke my sound.

#2 2011-05-12 10:11:39

Re: [SOLVED] "alsaconf" broke my sound.

#3 2011-05-12 10:19:34

Re: [SOLVED] "alsaconf" broke my sound.

#4 2011-05-12 11:32:52

Re: [SOLVED] "alsaconf" broke my sound.

#5 2011-05-12 11:35:30

Re: [SOLVED] "alsaconf" broke my sound.

#6 2011-05-12 11:49:46

Re: [SOLVED] "alsaconf" broke my sound.

#7 2011-05-12 12:58:07

Re: [SOLVED] "alsaconf" broke my sound.

#8 2011-05-12 13:09:24

Re: [SOLVED] "alsaconf" broke my sound.

#9 2011-05-12 14:39:38

Re: [SOLVED] "alsaconf" broke my sound.

#10 2011-05-12 16:56:34

Re: [SOLVED] "alsaconf" broke my sound.

#11 2011-05-12 18:26:25

Re: [SOLVED] "alsaconf" broke my sound.

#12 2011-05-12 18:54:57

Re: [SOLVED] "alsaconf" broke my sound.

#13 2011-05-12 19:07:12

Re: [SOLVED] "alsaconf" broke my sound.

#14 2011-05-17 15:08:09

Re: [SOLVED] "alsaconf" broke my sound.

#15 2011-05-17 15:19:21

Re: [SOLVED] "alsaconf" broke my sound.

#16 2011-05-17 16:17:23

Re: [SOLVED] "alsaconf" broke my sound.

#17 2011-05-17 16:49:22

Re: [SOLVED] "alsaconf" broke my sound.

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