Help for Sound Problems Intel (ICH5/5R) AC'97 [SOLVED]

[OverTheHill]

I hope this will help some people. I am new to Linux and recently changed from Maverick to Mint 10. I love LinuxMint and everything was working great until 3 days ago when my sound suddenly stopped working. I had done so many things (tweaks/Program adds/removals) that I wasn't sure what happened. I tried just about everything I came across in the Forums and they didn't work for me.

Finally, one of the posts lead me to the files where I did find the problem. My ICH5 chip and the codecs had been blacklisted.

My stuff:
Card Intel 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller

Where I found the problems:
/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-oss.conf

blacklist ac97_codec
blacklist ac97_plugin_ad1980

/etc/modprobe.d/oss4-base_noALSA.conf

blacklist snd-intel8x0

My fix (and it worked) was to simply add an # in front of each of the above blacklist statements. I have no further problems with sound.

Hope this helps someone and saves them some time.
~OverTheHill

[mads]

Hi OverTheHill, and thanks for sharing this.

Just wondering if you have installed OSS4 (it is not installed by default)?
Or, if you have replaced PulseAudio with OSS?

Could you please give some more details about your system (related to sound) prior to this workaround. Thanks.

[OverTheHill]

Thanks,

Well, like I said... being new to Linux Mint (and actually I didn't play around much with my previous installs, I started with Ubuntu 8.04) I was messing around a lot since I felt more comfortable with the system. I was installing and uninstalling a lot of stuff trying things out. I probably have some left over OSS4 stuff because I had replaced Pulse then reinstalled it/ I actually probably have quite a few files that don't need to be on this system right now. But, I figure as long as it works, I can clean everything up with the next release.

I started with computers on a commodore64 way back when and the changed to an old mid-line 286 running at a whopping 8Mhz / 12Mhz on Turbo
I never really got into all the code & Dos stuff though beyond "Basic".

Anyway, I'm guessing the OSS4 is left over...

Currently...

jeff-Dimension-4600i jeff # inxi -F
System: Host jeff-Dimension-4600i Kernel 2.6.35-23-generic i686 (32 bit) Distro Linux Mint 10 Julia
CPU: Single core Intel Pentium 4 (-HT-) cache 1024 KB flags (sse sse2 sse3) bmips 5586.47
Clock Speeds: (1) 2793.235 MHz (2) 2793.235 MHz
Graphics: Card Intel 82865G Integrated Graphics Controller tty res: 160x48 Gfx Data: N/A for root user
Audio: Card Intel 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller driver Intel ICH at ports ee00 edc0 BusID: 00:1f.5
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.23
Network: Card Intel 82562EZ 10/100 Ethernet Controller driver e100 v: 3.5.24-k2-NAPI at port df40 BusID: 01:08.0
Disks: HDD Total Size: 1160.2GB (2.1% used) 1: /dev/sda ST31000528AS 1000.2GB 39C
2: /dev/sdb ST3160023AS 160.0GB 48C
Partition: ID:/ size: 916G used: 11G (2%) fs: ext4 ID:swap-1 size: 1.57GB used: 0.33GB (21%) fs: swap
Info: Processes 169 Uptime 1:22 Memory 198.2/494.9MB Runlevel 2 Client Shell inxi 1.4.12


I know I need to up the memory (maybe Christmas). This is an old recycled machine from my closet...

[mads]

Thank you!

I asked about OSS, because I don't have "blacklist-oss.conf" and "oss4-base_noALSA.conf" in my /etc/modprobe.d folder. I guess the following explains why:

I probably have some left over OSS4 stuff because I had replaced Pulse then reinstalled it.

[seeley]

Hi OverTheHill!
Could you please inform us about your computer, I would like to add this thread to my help.
Thank you!
seeley

[p999t]

Thanks so much for sharing this, - I didn't think of looking in blacklists and have been scratching my head over the "nosound problem" for a couple of weeks.

Thanks again,

p999t

[OverTheHill]

Hi OverTheHill!
Could you please inform us about your computer, I would like to add this thread to my help.
Thank you!
seeley

Not sure what I can add except I've up'd to Debian Mint. The previous post pretty much explains the whole system. Could you be more specific? It is an old windows based system. I basically stripped windows out and up the system to Linux. My system is only using the ALSA setup and is working very well (except Firefox crashes about once every two days). I think this is a lack of enough memory issue.

P.S.
Sorry this took so long to get back to you, I have been coping with a shift change at work.

[seeley]

Hi OverTheHill!
Thanks.
Please edit your first post and add [solved] to the subject line.
seeley