sound card issues - a possible solution

[ginjabunny]

I thought I'd share this, it may help, the sound is now working properly on both my systems.

I have 2 comnputers, both were running Mint4 which I reinstalled to Mint5 the day after it was released....
1 - my laptop (Toshiba L30-10V) already had sound problems and this didn't change after the reinstall, I could get the speakers or headphones working (but not both at the same time) by adding and changing options snd-hda-intel statements to alsa-base
2 - my desktop (Asus Pundit P1-AH2) was working fine until I installed Mint5, things sounded horrible and it wouldn't save my CD volume setting which my TV card is plugged into, so I tried different options snd-hda-intel statements in alsa-base but nothing seemed to work properly.

So off to the Ubuntu forum, lots of stuff about things I had already tried then I discovered an article about there being problems with the snd-hda-intel alsa module which lots of cards seem to use. Some people reckon that problems are caused by the Alsa-base being 1.0.16 while the rest of Alsa is 1.0.15. Apparenlty some sound issues are fixed in 2.6.24-17 kernel but Mint5 is 2.6.24-16.

So it's all a horrible mess, then I came accross an entry which mentioned updating the Alsa drivers, so I did, which was quite easy and now both my computers are working properly, actully better than they ever have before, when headphones are plugged in the speakers cut out (hurrah) but I have not yet tested line-in or microphones. Both my computers use the Realtek ALC861 chipset but obviously different makes and models.

This may not work for you and if it doesn't then I do not know how to back it out, so beware (you may have to reinstall if it screws up)

Here is what i did... (I tried sudo but it failed so logged on as root and it worked).

apt-get install module-assistant
module-assistant a-i alsa-source
... then reboot

Open volume control and check the devices, I found a new 0: device with the correct name, ensure that none of the sliders are muted or at zero.

Hope this helps

BTW I am not sure if this affects PulseAudio (no idea how it works anyway) but as far as I am concerned if my sound is working properly then I don't care

[hotweiss]

I was hoping that this would fix my jack sensitivity problem - no luck. When I plug in my headphones, my speakers don't mute.

[ginjabunny]

oh well, it worked for me, I have no idea which cards/chipsets it will work with.
so happy if it works , still frustrated if it doesn't

[Verlager]

Worked for me. After the operation, the sound seems richer, fuller, purer, less grainy and less distorted. Thank you!

Code: Select all

       *-multimedia
             description: Audio device
             product: 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller
             vendor: Intel Corporation
             physical id: 1b
             bus info: pci@0000:00:1b.0
             version: 02
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 33MHz
             capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
             configuration: driver=HDA Intel latency=0 module=snd_hda_intel

I still have some sound problems related to jinchess and java, but with luck, they'll soon be history.