Re: [gentoo-user] Can't hear anything. :-(

[Robin Atwood]

On Tuesday 16 February 2010, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> Hi, gentoo,
>
> I'm trying to get sound to sound on my new Gentoo box, following the
> "Gentoo Linux ALSA Guide".  Everything seems to be working fine, except
> no sound is coming out of my loudspeakers.
>
> I've checked the obvious things: the speakers are plugged in, switched
> on and connected to the appropriate socket on my motherboard (the light
> green one).
>
> I have drivers for my motherboard's sound chips compiled into my kernel,
> and they are correctly identified by alsamixer.  With alsamixer I've
> unmuted various things and turned up the volume.
>
> madplay appears to play an mp3 file I have.  Just that no actual sound
> comes out.
>
> One other strange thing: the titles under the "volume bars" in alsamixer
> are very different from the ones in the document: Instead of "Master /
> Headphone / Tone / Bass / Treble / 3D Contr / PCM", I've got " Master /
> Headphon / Front / Front Mi / Surround / Center / LFE / Side / Line /
> Mic / Mic Boos / S/PDIF / S/PDIF D / Beep".  Why is this?  In
> particular, I'm missing the "PCM" volume bar which the documentation
> says is so important to unmute.
>
> What am I missing here?
>
> Thanks in advance!

I had a similar problem with an Audigy (CA0106) card. If depends if you have 
analogue or digital speakers. If they are analog the S/PDIF slider must be 
*muted* or there is no sound. This is counter-intuitive since one's first 
action with Alsa is to unmute everything!

HTH
-Robin
-- 
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Robin Atwood.

"Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
 Where there ain't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst"
         from "Mandalay" by Rudyard Kipling
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