Sound card not working?

[Petter Adsen]

On Mon, 20 Jul 2015 15:17:27 -0700
MR ZenWiz <mrzenwiz at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Jul 18, 2015 at 11:20 PM, Petter Adsen <petter at synth.no> wrote:
> >
> > One thing you can start with, is to disable the built-in sound
> > controller in the BIOS, if there is a setting for it. That would leave
> > you with fewer devices to fight with, and might be easier for you.
> >
> That disabled the onboard sound, but the new card still didn't work.
> 
> Turns out the bracket for holding the card in place was too high and
> the card didn't seat properly.
> 
> I removed the bracket, installed the card, and the machine came up
> without a network.
>
> I moved the sound card and both came up.
> 
> However, when I plugged in the speakers, all I got was static through
> the line-out plug.  I tried every combination I could thin of and woun
> dup giving up and removing the card.

Are you absolutely sure the speakers are good? Can you try plugging them
into a cellphone, for example, and see if you get sound or static
there? The cable might be loose.

> The mobo is about 5 years old - maybe it's time for a new one, one
> with SATA6, USB3 and an Intel CPU.
>
> Next month....

Well, you could also try to remove as much as possible that reeks of
PulseAudio, and try to get it going with just ALSA. Pulse can't get a
non-working sound configuration to work, it just adds features and
complexity. ALSA alone would be easier to debug.

> > If you don't have it, install pavucontrol and see if any devices are
> > muted. Make sure the cable to the speakers is connected correctly.
> >
> That's the same thing as the PulseAudio volume control, and that's the
> only way I know to manipulate this stuff.  Nothing was muted, it's
> just that most of the settings don't produce sound other than static.
> It's consistent down the whole list.

This sounds really odd. Is this the case for both the built-in and the
new sound card? They both produce static?

> > Start with these things, and see if any of them help, then come back
> > here if they don't.
> >
> Guess I'm back.  I haven't returned the sound card yet, so if there's
> something that will work, I'll appreciate saving around $500 to
> upgrade the whole system.

One more thing you can try; run 'lspci -k', it will print what kernel
modules your PCI devices are using. Run a Google search for the names
of the kernel modules you see listed for each sound card, and add the
words "produces static" to the search.

Other than ripping out Pulse and trying with just ALSA, I'm afraid I
don't have any other suggestions. Ever since the days when OSS was king,
sound has always Just Worked for me, so I've never needed to get deep
into it. You could look here for more information, though:

http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Main_Page

Good luck!

Petter

-- 
"I'm ionized"
"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive."
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