(SOLVED) No 5:1 surround sound

[Hawkwind]

I have a HDA ATI SB card with Realtek ALC861 chip.
All i can get is stereo through the two front speakers.
I can only select stereo from hardware settings and pulseaudio volume control, alsamixer only selects left and right speaker as well.

I have tried editing /etc/pulse/daemon.conf to

default-sample-channels = 6

also with no success.
Then i changed it to

default-sample-channels = 6
enable-lfe-remixing = yes
default-channel-map = front-left,front-right,rear-left,rear-right,front-center,lfe

again with no success.

Does anyone have a solution to being able to enable 5:1 sound, thank you.

[mads]

Hi. I'm not sure, but you might need to manually set the model in "/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf".

Code: Select all

options snd-hda-intel model=MODEL

Replace snd-hda-intel by the output of this command: cat /proc/asound/modules
Replace MODEL by your sound cards model.

[Hawkwind]

Hi, thanks for taking the time to reply, i still only have stereo assuming that i have edited the "/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf" correctly.
Added line in red.

# autoloader aliases
install sound-slot-0 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-0
install sound-slot-1 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-1
install sound-slot-2 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-2
install sound-slot-3 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-3
install sound-slot-4 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-4
install sound-slot-5 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-5
install sound-slot-6 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-6
install sound-slot-7 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-7
# Cause optional modules to be loaded above generic modules
install snd /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet snd-ioctl32 ; /sbin/modprobe --quiet snd-seq ; }
install snd-rawmidi /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-rawmidi && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet snd-seq-midi ; : ; }
install snd-emu10k1 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-emu10k1 && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet snd-emu10k1-synth ; : ; }

# Prevent abnormal drivers from grabbing index 0
options 0 snd_hda_intel model=ALC861
options bt87x index=-2
options cx88_alsa index=-2
options snd-atiixp-modem index=-2
options snd-intel8x0m index=-2
options snd-via82xx-modem index=-2
# Keep snd-pcsp from beeing loaded as first soundcard
options snd-usb-audio index=-2

[mads]

Remove '0', like this:
options snd_hda_intel model=SEE_BELOW

3stack 3-jack
3stack-dig 3-jack with SPDIF I/O
6stack-dig 6-jack with SPDIF I/O
3stack-660 3-jack (for ALC660)
uniwill-m31 Uniwill M31 laptop
toshiba Toshiba laptop support
asus Asus laptop support
asus-laptop ASUS F2/F3 laptops
auto auto-config reading BIOS (default)

Not sure? Try 'auto' first. You need to reboot for changes to take effect.

[Hawkwind]

Thank you again

I am getting somewhere now.
After adding 3stack to the line, after reboot in sound preferences or in hardware or pulseaudio i still only have stereo.
But if i open up alsamixer in a terminal and then f6 and select HDA ATI SB card with Realtek ALC861 chip i then have front/surround/centre/lfe now showing (which were not before) although i still can only adjust pcm. (screenshot attached)

[Hawkwind]

Still not managed to get 5:1
If i killall pulseaudio and then go into preferences (now alsa instead of pulseaudio) i can select surround, centre and lfe but only select them as switches and not playback, so i still can only get stereo and not 5:1.
Alsamixer is still the same as the post above i can see but not adjust the volume for surround, centre and lfe.

There must be just some small thing i am missing here.

[mads]

I suggest to start a new thread with a new title, attach the picture and re-write what the status is NOW.
I think the chances to get help are greater if you do so. Choose an interesting title to get max attention.

By the way, removing/reinstalling PulseAudio in LMDE is very convenient. Have you seen this guide?

[Hawkwind]

I followed your guide to remove Pulseaudio and Install libalsaplayer0 package, after a reboot i could still not find a way to enable 5:1.

So i then installed Pulseaudio again along with other packages relevent to Pulseaudio that were installed previously, rebooted, went into preferences only this time under the options tab there was a dropdown box to switch between 2 channel and 6 channels.
I selected 6 channels and now all 6 speakers are working fine apart from a crackeling noise from the speakers when the sound is turned to a low volume.

So thank you very much mads for taking the time to help it is very much appreciated, i would not have got there without your guide

[mads]

@Hawkwind, if you feel that the issue is solved, would you please add [SOLVED] to the title of this thread.

...So i then installed Pulseaudio again along with other packages relevent to Pulseaudio that were installed previously, rebooted, went into preferences only this time under the options tab there was a dropdown box to switch between 2 channel and 6 channels.
I selected 6 channels and now all 6 speakers are working fine apart from a crackeling noise from the speakers when the sound is turned to a low volume.

For other people suffering from the same issue. I think running the following commands followed by a reboot do the trick:

Code: Select all

rm ~/.pulse-cookie
rm -r ~/.pulse

If they don't, follow this procedure:
1) Remove PulseAudio

Code: Select all

killall pulseaudio
sudo killall pulseaudio
sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio libpulse-browse0 paman pavumeter pavucontrol
sudo mv /etc/asound.conf /etc/asound.conf-bak
rm ~/.pulse-cookie
rm -r ~/.pulse

2) Restart your computer
3) Now reinstall PulseAudio

Code: Select all

sudo mv /etc/asound.conf-bak /etc/asound.conf
sudo apt-get install pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio libpulse-browse0 paman pavumeter pavucontrol

4) Restart your computer

[SpawnHappyJake]

Hello everybody! Thank you Mads for your concern. I tried the condensed solution posted above. I already had the surround sound working, but the "test speaker" buttons in Sound Preferences with the smiley face don't work (when 5.1 mode is selected). After doing this solution, that is still the case. Though the surround sound worked from the get-go this time (after selecting 5.1), rather than having to "activate" it by increasing the volume way high.
And I am all too familiar with the crackling noise (brought up by Hawkwind). I'll see if that is reduced or eliminated by this. It seems worst when the system volume is very low. I can have the system volume way high, and the volume of the end program that I am playing the media file with down, and it's not as bad. But when it's there I can't totally get rid of it. Right now I don't have it. Maybe this fixed that.
Thanks again...a lot.

Cheers,
Jake

P.S: Here's the thread I came from where Mads invited me here: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=76086. If anyone wants more details to my situation, they should be there. My situation is unique because it involves a sound card not too well supported by Linux drivers, but that seems to be changing (or maybe whatever sits on top of the drivers got better? Or maybe I got better. :p). The highly advanced features of the card that can be accessed in Windows still aren't available in Linux, but I can't complain too much about that - I'm just looking for complete, crackleless 5.1 surround in Linux XD.

[SpawnHappyJake]

Looks like mine isn't solved yet:http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=76086.
SpawnHappy

[pepe333]

this was the way I got 5.1 sound
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeOuseUqe9Y