Re: [gentoo-user] No sound with Intel HDA card in Gateway m6888u laptop (2.6.30-r4, amd64)

[John H. Moe]

Jesse Taylor wrote:
> Hello --
>
> I've been trying to get my sound working for nearly a month now with
> no luck.
>
> * I've followed the Gentoo ALSA Guide *several times*, and it's not
> working for me.
>
> * I've already unmuted my card in alsamixer and raised the volume to
> 100%
>
> * There is no sound that is coming from any of the following:
>    -- mplayer (movies or mp3's)
>    -- speaker-test
>    -- flash movies in Firefox
>    -- etc ... i.e. NOTHING gives me any sound
>
> * But when I try to play sound in any of the above mentioned programs,
> I get no errors (i.e. they seem to think that my sound *is* working.
>
> * I've checked to make sure that the volume isn't muted via the
> keyboard, and that the volume is at 100% there too.
>
> * There are no errors that are popping up in /var/log/messages or /var/
> log/dmesg when I do '/etc/init.d/alsasound restart' nor when I
> manually rmmod/modprobe the sound modules
>
> * The hardware is not damaged/broken -- it works fine from Windows
>
> * I've tried to disable ati-hdmi in the kernel and it doesn't make a
> difference (it's currently enabled, but unused according to lspci -k)
> and according to http://kmuto.jp/debian/hcl/ the ATI HDMI card should
> be using snd-hda-intel (as it currently is) anyway
>
> * I've tried telling alsaconf to use the Intel HDA card, and the ATI
> HDMI card -- neither of these work.
>
> * I started a thread on Gentoo Forums regarding this problem () and
> someone said: <QUOTE> HD Audio often needs a model option passed to it
> based on the codec see /usr/src/linux/Documentation/
> sound/alsa/HD-
> Audio-Models.txt to see what the model should be. </QUOTE> ... But
> looking through that file, I could not determine which option I should
> use (if this is even a solution, anyway) for my card. Google was no
> help here.  (note that the Intel HDA card uses the SigmaTel ID 76a0
> codec)
>
> Is there any additional information I can provide (besides what I just
> mentioned, and the stuff below) to help diagnose this? Anything else I
> should try? Any help would be *very* much appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Jesse Taylor
>
> P.S.
>
> Here's some info on the current state of things:
>
> #####################
> # cat /proc/asound/cards
> #####################
>  0 [Intel          ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
>                      HDA Intel at 0xf3300000 irq 22
>  1 [HDMI           ]: HDA-Intel - HDA ATI HDMI
>                      HDA ATI HDMI at 0xf3010000 irq 17
>
> ########
> #lspci -k
> ########
> 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio
> Controller (rev 04)
>        Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
>        Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel
> 01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc RV630/M76 audio device
> [Radeon HD 2600 Series]
>        Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
>        Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel
>
> ######################
> # cat /proc/asound/devices
> ######################
> 0: [ 0]   : control
>  1:        : sequencer
>  16: [ 0- 0]: digital audio playback
>  24: [ 0- 0]: digital audio capture
>  32: [ 1]   : control
>  33:        : timer
>
> ########
> # codecs  (note that there are two codecs for card0 (is this normal?))
> ########
>
> # the intel card
> localhost ~ # cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#0
> Codec: SigmaTel ID 76a0
> Address: 0
> Function Id: 0x1
> Vendor Id: 0x838476a0
> Subsystem Id: 0x107b0562
> Revision Id: 0x100204
>
> #the intel card again
> localhost ~ # cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#1
> Codec: Conexant ID 2c06
> Address: 1
> Function Id: 0x2
> Vendor Id: 0x14f12c06
> Subsystem Id: 0x14f10000
> Revision Id: 0x100000
> Modem Function Group: 0x2
>
> # the ATI HDMI card
> localhost ~ # cat /proc/asound/card1/codec#0
> Codec: ATI ID aa01
> Address: 0
> Function Id: 0x1
> Vendor Id: 0x1002aa01
> Subsystem Id: 0x00aa0100
> Revision Id: 0x100000
> No Modem Function Group found
>
>
> ########
> # lsmod
> ########
> snd_seq_oss            31392  0
> snd_seq_midi_event      7208  1 snd_seq_oss
> snd_seq                56672  4 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
> snd_seq_device          7164  2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
> snd_pcm_oss            41184  0
> snd_mixer_oss          16904  1 snd_pcm_oss
> snd_hrtimer             2840  0
> snd_hda_codec_atihdmi     3944  1
> snd_hda_intel          28296  0
> snd_hda_codec          66152  2 snd_hda_codec_atihdmi,snd_hda_intel
> snd_pcm                74640  3
> snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
> snd_timer              22264  3 snd_seq,snd_hrtimer,snd_pcm
> snd                    65256  9
> snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
> snd_page_alloc          9496  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
>
>
> #############
> # Kernel config
> #############
>
> CONFIG_SND=m
> CONFIG_SND_TIMER=m
> CONFIG_SND_PCM=m
> CONFIG_SND_JACK=y
> CONFIG_SND_SEQUENCER=m
> CONFIG_SND_OSSEMUL=y
> CONFIG_SND_MIXER_OSS=m
> CONFIG_SND_PCM_OSS=m
> CONFIG_SND_PCM_OSS_PLUGINS=y
> CONFIG_SND_SEQUENCER_OSS=y
> CONFIG_SND_HRTIMER=m
> CONFIG_SND_SEQ_HRTIMER_DEFAULT=y
> CONFIG_SND_SUPPORT_OLD_API=y
> CONFIG_SND_VMASTER=y
> CONFIG_SND_PCI=y
> CONFIG_SND_HDA_INTEL=m
> # CONFIG_SND_HDA_HWDEP is not set
> CONFIG_SND_HDA_INPUT_BEEP=y
> CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_ATIHDMI=y
> # CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_INTELHDMI is not set
> CONFIG_SND_HDA_GENERIC=y
> # CONFIG_SND_HDA_POWER_SAVE is not set
>
> #########################
> # cat /etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf
> #########################
>
> alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
> alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
> alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss
> alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
> alias sound-slot-0 snd-hda-intel
>
>
> Also, check out the output of the info script from the official ALSA
> site:
> http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=b741663fa1c69d5a5cfeabfa51086ba636c6aef5

From the above, it looks like your card, while using the Intel HD Audio
spec, is using the Conexant codec.  But you don't have support for that
in your kernel, or at least, not in the options you quoted
(CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_CONEXANT).  Try adding that.  If that doesn't
work, try adding support for all the codecs listed under the Device
Drivers -> Sound card support -> ALSA -> PCI Sound Devices -> Intel HD
Audio sub-menu and see if that fixes things up.

Also, at a guess, the two "codecs" are going to be the Conexant codec
for the sound card, and the SigmaTel for the modem.  But for the ATI
HDMI, I'm used to seeing that referring to video cards and monitors; see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdmi.

HTH

John Moe