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Mike Orr [sluggoster at gmail.com]
My sound isn't working right. How do I fix it?
Seriously, I upgraded from Kububtu 6.10 to 7.04 in a different root partition, though they're sharing the same home partition. Now where the old system makes a big sound, the new system makes a teensy-weensy little sound. I go back and startle the neighbors; I sally ho (or ho Sally), and I have to wait till the refrigerator shuts off to hear the sound.
The configuration in both appears to be identical. KInfoCenter says it's a VIA 8237 device with ALC655, Type 10 ALSA emulation. KMix has "Master" and "PCM" unmuted and their volumes near maximum. In the Switches tab, all the lights are off except "External Amplifier", which doesn't do anything either way.
The KDE Peripherals dialog has "Enable the sound system", "Run with the highest possible priority", "sound buffer as large as possible", "auto-suspend if idle after 60 seconds", "autodetect audio device", "default quality", "Midi through midi through port-0 - ALSA device". The test sound is quiet and distorted on the new system, but loud and clear on the old one.
-- Mike Orr <sluggoster@gmail.com>
MNZ [mnzaki at gmail.com]
On 8/11/07, Mike Orr <sluggoster@gmail.com> wrote:
> My sound isn't working right. How do I fix it? > > Seriously, I upgraded from Kububtu 6.10 to 7.04 in a different root > partition, though they're sharing the same home partition. Now where > the old system makes a big sound, the new system makes a teensy-weensy > little sound. I go back and startle the neighbors; I sally ho (or ho > Sally), and I have to wait till the refrigerator shuts off to hear the > sound.
Is it the same ALSA version? Maybe there's a bug somewhere...
-- //MNZ\\
Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
On Sat, Aug 11, 2007 at 11:48:07AM -0700, Mike Orr wrote:
> My sound isn't working right. How do I fix it?
By making it work right - DUH! 
> Seriously, I upgraded from Kububtu 6.10 to 7.04 in a different root
^^^^^^^
That may well be the problem. As I understand it, Kubuntu works pretty
well - but if you use one of those strange distros that nobody's ever
heard of, you have only yourself to blame.
> partition, though they're sharing the same home partition. Now where > the old system makes a big sound, the new system makes a teensy-weensy > little sound. I go back and startle the neighbors; I sally ho (or ho > Sally), and I have to wait till the refrigerator shuts off to hear the > sound.
Why don't you just tell Sally to shut off your refrigerator every time you want to play your Weird Al Yankovic or whatever? Seems like a pretty good solution to me...
> The configuration in both appears to be identical. KInfoCenter says > it's a VIA 8237 device with ALC655, Type 10 ALSA emulation. KMix has > "Master" and "PCM" unmuted and their volumes near maximum. In the > Switches tab, all the lights are off except "External Amplifier", > which doesn't do anything either way. > > The KDE Peripherals dialog has "Enable the sound system", "Run with > the highest possible priority", "sound buffer as large as possible", > "auto-suspend if idle after 60 seconds", "autodetect audio device", > "default quality", "Midi through midi through port-0 - ALSA device". > The test sound is quiet and distorted on the new system, but loud and > clear on the old one.
Have you checked which sound-related modules are loading in both cases?
# Repeat once per distro, then run "vim -d" on the two files lsmod|egrep '^s(ou)?nd' > /var/tmp/`date +%F`_modulesAre they the same versions, or have any changes been made?
# Repeat once per distro, then run "vim -d" on the two files
for n in `lsmod|awk '/^s(ou)?nd/{print $1}'`; do modinfo $n; done > /var/tmp/`date +%F`_sound
Which I/O range, IRQ, and DMA is your sound hardware using in both
cases? Examine /proc/{interrupts, iomem, ioports, dma}; get the PCI
address via
lspci|awk '/[Aa]udio|[Ss]ound/{print $1}'
If you find any differences, try specifying the old (working) values
when you load the modules in the new setup. Many modules accept
arguments; see the 'parm' lines in 'modinfo' output for a given module.
-- * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *
Martin J Hooper [martinjh at blueyonder.co.uk]
Ben Okopnik wrote:
> # Repeat once per distro, then run "vim -d" on the two files
> for n in `lsmod|awk '/^s(ou)?nd/{print $1}'`; do modinfo $n; done > /var/tmp/`date +%F`_sound
vim -d ?? Just curious what -d does...
Wondering if its the equivalent of nano's -w - No word wrap...
Jim Jackson [jj at franjam.org.uk]
On Tue, 14 Aug 2007, Martin J Hooper wrote:
> Ben Okopnik wrote:
> > # Repeat once per distro, then run "vim -d" on the two files
> > for n in `lsmod|awk '/^s(ou)?nd/{print $1}'`; do modinfo $n; done > /var/tmp/`date +%F`_sound
>
>
> vim -d ?? Just curious what -d does...
>
2 files, and you are probably wanting to see what differences there are...
> Wondering if its the equivalent of nano's -w - No word wrap...
nah. Pick 2 files that are nearly the same and try it
After that man vim gave...
-d Start in diff mode. There should be two or
three file name arguments. Vim will open all
the files and show differences between them.
Works like vimdiff(1).
It's pretty neat.
Martin J Hooper [martinjh at blueyonder.co.uk]
Jim Jackson wrote:
> nah. Pick 2 files that are nearly the same and try it
Ah cool - Must remember that one - Might come in handy someday... ;)
Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
On Tue, Aug 14, 2007 at 07:23:44AM +0100, Martin J Hooper wrote:
> Ben Okopnik wrote:
> > # Repeat once per distro, then run "vim -d" on the two files
> > for n in `lsmod|awk '/^s(ou)?nd/{print $1}'`; do modinfo $n; done > /var/tmp/`date +%F`_sound
>
>
> vim -d ?? Just curious what -d does...
Shows a diff, in beautiful living color. I've nearly stopped using
'diff' except in scripts - this is so much more useful and intuitive.
-- * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *
Faber J. Fedor [faber at linuxnj.com]
On 14/08/07 12:44 -0400, Ben Okopnik wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 14, 2007 at 07:23:44AM +0100, Martin J Hooper wrote:
> > Ben Okopnik wrote:
> > > # Repeat once per distro, then run "vim -d" on the two files
> > > for n in `lsmod|awk '/^s(ou)?nd/{print $1}'`; do modinfo $n; done > /var/tmp/`date +%F`_sound
> >
> > vim -d ?? Just curious what -d does...
>
> Shows a diff, in beautiful living color.
On some systems (such as FC3), there is a symlink to vim called vimdiff that does the same.
> I've nearly stopped using > 'diff' except in scripts - this is so much more useful and intuitive.
Very! Although I often run diff to see if there are any differences first just so I don't have to exit two files in vim.
-- Regards, Faber Fedor President Linux New Jersey, Inc. 908-320-0357 800-706-0701
-- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.
Thomas Adam [thomas at edulinux.homeunix.org]
On Sat, Aug 11, 2007 at 11:48:07AM -0700, Mike Orr wrote:
> My sound isn't working right. How do I fix it?
Speak up there, I can't hear you.
> Seriously, I upgraded from Kububtu 6.10 to 7.04 in a different root > partition, though they're sharing the same home partition. Now where > the old system makes a big sound, the new system makes a teensy-weensy > little sound. I go back and startle the neighbors; I sally ho (or ho > Sally), and I have to wait till the refrigerator shuts off to hear the > sound.
So what you're saying is that the sound is really faint? This is what you get for using KDE; there have been all manner of reports over the years of various KDE apps breaking the weirdest of things. At least make sure you haven't got that abomination that is ArtsD (or whatever the stupid capitalisation of it is) running.
> The configuration in both appears to be identical. KInfoCenter says > it's a VIA 8237 device with ALC655, Type 10 ALSA emulation. KMix has > "Master" and "PCM" unmuted and their volumes near maximum. In the > Switches tab, all the lights are off except "External Amplifier", > which doesn't do anything either way.
There's a few things to check here (you're naughty in trying to throw red-herrings at U/us with all this KDE stuff. :P):
1. Make sure you don't have any OSS cruft loaded. (Even the emulation layer -- just go with straight ALSA).
2. Check the version of ALSA:
cat /proc/asound/versionagainst the ALSA library version. They ought to match:
grep VERSION_STR /usr/include/alsa/version.hIf they don't, best to compile ALSA by hand, and fudge its install.
A lot of the VIA-based on-board jobbies are notorious for choppy sound -- something which could be symptomatic of this quietness. There's an option for setting the fragment size in ~/.asoundrc -- I can't remember what it is.
-- Thomas Adam
-- "He wants you back, he screams into the night air, like a fireman going through a window that has no fire." -- Mike Myers, "This Poem Sucks".