"Make this a sticky" Got My sound back Intel ICH on a Dell

[rdonnelly]

I have been using Mint for 4 to 5 months and always had sound until recently. While reading another posters intel sound problems, http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=22680 , I relized there was more to the volume control in the lower right corner of the panel, a double click brought me to the mixer. I found both PCM sliders were set to zero. Slid them to the top, sound problem solved.

[viking777]

You have hit on a problem that is endemic in Linux at the moment, there are so many sound controllers and volume controls that it is very easy to make this mistake and the mistake is not necessarily yours, imho it lies with developers for making the whole thing overly complicated or perhaps failing to see that it needs simplifying.
If you count graphical, comand line and hardware modes, I recently found that there were 7 different ways to adjust the volume on my laptop, and not all of them work with each other, this is nonsense.

[Decemberdoom]

Usually, problems start occurring when two different programs start messing with the volume settings at the same time...

[rdonnelly]

Just wondering? What is PCM volume?

[Decemberdoom]

PCM Volume generally controls sounds for stuff like sound files, whereas master volume controls sound for well, everything.

[rdonnelly]

Me, with my limited Linux knowledge have been able to help a few posters lately because their sliders were set all the way down on PCM. I think a simple fix like this should be a sticky in the hardware forum.