Headphones on laptop with HDA INTEL AUDIO not working

[Fredzz]

I have a Acer Travelmate 5310 and when i plug my headphones in the front of the laptop, it just doesnt work. The sound keeps playing from the speakers.
I've searched and i see that some have a similar problem : Sound from the speakers doesn't mute when plugging headphones, or sound doesnt work at all, but i did not find any post with my problem.

When i go to alsamixer i only have MASTER and PCM.

Can anyone help me out with this. I had Sabayon (Gentoo based) and it didnt work too!

I can give you any info you need to help me. Thanks in advance

[Fredzz]

lspci shows up as Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)

[Slapshot]

Hi Fredzz

I'm just looking into this as I have an Nvidia HDA audio problem and only have sound from my right front speaker. I'm a noob to all this but perhaps if we keep this thread for both problems we can share what we find.

If you do alsamixer from a terminal command you get some more relevant info, as well as the audio device name you also under it get the chip name.

Card: HDA NVidia
│ Chip: Analog Devices AD1986A
│ View: [Playback] Capture All
│ Item: Aux [dB gain=-1.50, -1.50]

That's mine above. The relevant thing for me in the alsa config for the correct codec ( I think that's right lol ) is the chip part which is AD1986A.
Check yours and then you need to check the alsa config file which is located here
/usr/share/doc/alsa-base/driver/ALSA-Configuration.txt.gz

Open this and then search for your chip and then manufacturer or brand of board and then the model it specifies can be inserted into the bottom of the file alsa-base located in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base

You insert the line
options snd_hda_intel model=your-model-or-brand-here
Then save it.
Then reboot.

I believe it's an alsa problem not a kernel or distro based problem. You can find quite a bit on googling MCP51 which is the identifier of the nvidia chip or just high definition audio problem in google for Linux.
Hope this starts to help us both mate.

[Fredzz]

Well my problem is solved. I updated my alsa drivers to latest version 1.0.15 and after like 4 reboots and keep trying now it works. Now i have lots of more options on alsa mixer including Recording, Mic, Front Mic.. etc and whenever i plug my headphones it works.
Try to update your alsa drivers to the latest. i went to package manager and removed alsa drivers.. Then used a nice little script that installed alsa for me. because i tried manually with no success.

I used this link:

http://www.antonywilliams.com/2007/10/bash-script-to-automate-compiling-alsa.html

I tried without removing previous drivers and didnt work. I had first to remove my current version of alsa and then follow the tutorial.

Hope it helps for you man! Cheers!

[Slapshot]

Hey Fredzz

Many thanks for that info. I did what you suggested and everything went ok. That script was a great find. It thought it didn't work at first as I got all the correct faders in Alsamixer but just sound out of the right speaker still. I then looked up a thread on the Ubuntu forums that shows how people with HDA audio problems can ditch Alsa and use OSS instead.

Here's the thread link

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=3768914

The first link in the thread shows the supported devices list and it does support a heck of a lot of devices including mine. I ditched alsa installed OSS and hey presto superb mixer with lots of buttons and stuff and still no sound except for the right front speaker. HMMMM this led me to the conclusion that the onboard soundcard was bust right from brand new. It was lol. I have 2 off these p.c's and the wife runs windows on the other one so I partitioned her hard drive, installed mint to dual boot and then had no full sound. I used the method you gave for the alsa compile and it worked great. I also ditched Alsa and installed OSS and that worked great too. So if anyone reads this thread there are 2 ways to get your sound working if you have a problematic HDA card. Both the ways worked fully on my card so take your pick. I realy solved my card being broken by not taking it back to the shop I bought it from ( as I completely flattened the drive and ditched my never used copy of Vista so I reckon they wouldn't help me ) but just sticking in a known working card and disabling the onboard one in the bios.

Cheers

Slap