new machine; no sound

Tue Nov 11 10:58:42 UTC 2008

On Sun, 2008-11-09 at 17:55 +0100, Nigel Henry wrote:
> On Sunday 09 November 2008 09:12, Glenn Holmer wrote:
> > I just bought a new machine and put Intrepid on it (32-bit), but have no
> > sound.  It's a quad-core Xeon, with a Super Micro X7DA8 board, and I
> > took a SoundBlaster Audigy SB1394 from my previous machine and put it in
> > the new one.  I disabled the onboard AC 97 audio via jumper (verified by
> > running "asoundconf list" both ways).  Volume is normal, nothing is
> > muted, etc.
> >
> > I had a chat with Mr. Google and ended up taking this advice:
> >
> > http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=866965
> >
> > but it didn't help.  All the diagnostics show that the sound card is
> > there (lshw, lspci, etc.) and the PulseAudio Manager looks normal (the
> > volume meters move when I play a file), but there's no output.  I tested
> > with headphones plugged directly into the card.  I know the card is
> > still good because I swapped it back into the previous machine, plugged
> > headphones into it, and played a .wav file.
> >
> > I'm confused because all the diagnostics seem to show that the card is
> > working properly, but I have no output.  Suggestions?

> First the caveats. I'm currently finishing off the download of Kubuntu 8.10 
> (on dialup), having already dl'd Ubuntu 8.10, but neither are installed yet. 
> I don't use Pulseaudio, and have it disabled in Fedora8, 9, and Kubuntu HH 
> 8.04. I use KDE, and am a bit clueless about Gnome.

Ouch.

> Can you post the output of, cat /proc/asound/cards .  Your Audigy card should 
> be card0. Sometimes problematic drivers can insist on grabbing card0. The 
> same goes, if you have any audio related devices plugged into the USB, a 
> webcam, usb midi keyboard, etc, and snd-usb-audio has grabbed card0, and your 
> Audigy card has been relegated to card1.

With the onboard sound disabled, I get:

 0 [Audigy         ]: Audigy - Audigy 1 [Unknown]
                      Audigy 1 [Unknown] (rev.3, serial:0x5a1102) at 0x4000, irq 16

> You could post the output of,  lsmod | grep snd , just to see which modules 
> are loaded.

snd_emu10k1_synth      14464  0 
snd_emux_synth         41216  1 snd_emu10k1_synth
snd_seq_virmidi        13568  1 snd_emux_synth
snd_seq_midi_emul      14592  1 snd_emux_synth
snd_emu10k1           146208  4 snd_emu10k1_synth
snd_ac97_codec        110372  1 snd_emu10k1
ac97_bus                9856  1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm_oss            46720  0 
snd_mixer_oss          22784  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm                83332  3 snd_emu10k1,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_page_alloc         16264  2 snd_emu10k1,snd_pcm
snd_util_mem           12416  2 snd_emux_synth,snd_emu10k1
snd_hwdep              15236  2 snd_emux_synth,snd_emu10k1
snd_seq_dummy          10884  0 
snd_seq_oss            38400  0 
snd_seq_midi           14336  0 
snd_rawmidi            29696  3 snd_seq_virmidi,snd_emu10k1,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event     15232  3 snd_seq_virmidi,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq                57776  9 snd_emux_synth,snd_seq_virmidi,snd_seq_midi_emul,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_timer              29832  3 snd_emu10k1,snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device         15116  8 snd_emu10k1_synth,snd_emux_synth,snd_emu10k1,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
snd                    63268  19 snd_emux_synth,snd_seq_virmidi,snd_emu10k1,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_hwdep,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
soundcore              15328  1 snd

> Also have a look in /etc/group.  Your user name should be in the audio group, 
> and if it exists, the pulse group.

audio:x:29:pulse,cenbe,shadowm
pulse:x:115:shadowm
pulse-access:x:116:shadowm
pulse-rt:x:117:shadowm

> Which app are you using to play sounds? There is usually in it's audio 
> settings an option to use alsa directly, or other options. As you say though 
> that the Pulse Audio Manager indicates that the file is playing, perhaps that 
> bit is ok.

aplay <filename>
aplay -Dhw:0 <filename>
play <filename>

> What does alsamixer show, when you open it as user in a terminal. I know on 
> Fedora 9, it only showed one slider before I disabled Pulseaudio, and after 
> that, several sliders for my hda intel card.

Shows only Master (Pulseaudio).

If I do alsamixer -Dhw:0 I get all the controls for the Audigy.

If I kill pulseaudio with "pulseaudio -k", then "alsamixer" shows the
Audigy controls, but still no sound.

-- 
"After the vintage season came the aftermath - and Cenbe."
Glenn Holmer  (Q-Link: ShadowM)  http://www.lyonlabs.org