Plugged in subwoofer and lost all sound

[Ric Moore]

On 02/20/2012 02:09 PM, Wade Smart wrote:
> A friend gave me his older Altec Lancing subwoofer
> after getting a new one. I plugged it into my sub port
> but had no sound. I went to Sound Preferences and
> under the hardware tab, highlighted my Internal
> Audio card and in the Settings for the selected device
> below changed from Analog Stereo Duplex to
> Analog Surround 5.1 Output + Analog Stereo Input.
> Nothing happened. After trying several of the choices
> I lost sound all together.
>
> I rebooted and noticed I heard the ubuntu start up
> sound. I went back into the Sound Preferences and
> under Sound Effects under Sound Theme I changed
> from Ubuntu to No sound and back, I can hear the
> sounds there. But when you try to play youtube or
> or a cd or anything else with sound - there is no
> sound at all.

Do alsmixer first. Then the pulse audio pavucontrol second. It should be 
detected. Is that woofer self powered? Or is it just a speaker in an 
enclosure? If the rest of your speakers are self powered (built in amp) 
then the woofer would probably have to be as well ...but I'm guessing 
there. My computer with the MSI motherboard won't auto select it's 
builtin audio outs to pre-amp mode. It's trying to power my speakers 
like they have no amps and buzzes like crazy. POS. No problems with the 
same surround sound set up with my ASUS board. Ric