Losing Sound on 14 MATE: What files to backup?

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Hoffman462

Losing Sound on 14 MATE: What files to backup?

Post by Hoffman462 »

Hi,
I have an alienware MX 18 R2 laptop which seems to lose all sound capability on Linux Mint 14 / 14.1 after some use.
It appears that I might bee ssh'ing to another network box, and using mplayer. Afterwards, my laptop's sound stops working -- (I'm speculating if this is actually what causes my sound to stop working.
but I think that it is). I do know that I've lost sound 3 times. I've checked volume controls, alsamixer, followed a variety of forums and posts -- and have never been able to restore sound capability back.

Now that I've re-installed again -- What files should I back up so that I can get sound working when this happens again next time?
I even tried to switch to Linux Mint 13, thinking that it would be more stable, but it turns out that I get no sound at all on 13!

Below is some diagnostic information regarding my sound card.

The output of aplay -l is:

Code: Select all

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: CA0132 Analog [CA0132 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
And the output of lspci -v | grep -A7 -i "audio"

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lspci -v | grep -A7 -i "audio"
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
	Subsystem: Dell Device 0550
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 45
	Memory at c4310000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
	Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

--
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0e1b (rev a1)
	Subsystem: Dell Device 0550
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
	Memory at c3000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
	Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel
Thanks for any help or tips
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
pwnie

Re: Losing Sound on 14 MATE: What files to backup?

Post by pwnie »

Hello, this is not distribution related, the symptom appears on for me so far:

ustudio 12.10
crunchbang waldorf
opensuse 12.2
mint 14

What i can say happens, after a cold or reboot with HDMI cable in, you almost definitely get zero access to speakers and headphone jack even seeing the signal level trough pulse, however HDMI sound will usually work.
booting windows first then any *nix also seems to do it
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-915648.html

3.7.x kernels seem to identify the ca0132 card better, even getting the SPIDF connector shown as sinks.... however i still can 'loose sound'

this page does discuss a patch to alsa, which i didnt do but the asound.conf seems to be possibly useful in trying to insist the laptop speakers are more important then the HDMI digital out:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-92 ... art-0.html

another thing i have noticed on all the above distribution is my nvidia settings do not show my 680m on AC power but instead battery all the time, and reports incorrect clocks. Benchmarking in heaven is less impressive then windows, if you have a nvidia card in yours if you could provide your driver version and clocks shown that be really great as I have found little on this machine so far.

I think we have DSDT problems that may relate to the sound issue, maybe, and possibly to the nvidia-settings being unhappy, i am still plugging at that.

sound wise you are generally suffering from the beginnings of decent support for the ca0132 module, i wound up distribution hopping so much I cannto say if the 3.7x+ kernels are better with consistency as i've been distracted by attempts to solve my video card not appearing to go as fast as it can.
Hoffman462

Re: Losing Sound on 14 MATE: What files to backup?

Post by Hoffman462 »

Incredibly interesting!

I did this to see that I have the same sound card in the posts that you have referenced -

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cat /proc/asound/cards
 0 [PCH            ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH
                      HDA Intel PCH at 0xc4310000 irq 45
 1 [NVidia         ]: HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia
                      HDA NVidia at 0xc3000000 irq 17
So i guess linux mint thinks i have 2 sound cards 0 and 1. I'm speculating at the interpretation here - but at spot 0, its using module HDA Intel and at Spot 1, Nvidia.

and this:

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# cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#* | grep Codec
Codec: Creative CA0132
# cat /proc/asound/card1/codec#* | grep Codec
Codec: Nvidia GPU 42 HDMI/DP
So I would wager that card0 is using that CA0132 codec that you described in your post. And Card 1 is using the official NVidia driver?


Also much like your second link/post references, I did this as well:
I created an /etc/asound.conf file with the following:

Code: Select all

% cat /etc/asound.conf
defaults.pcm.card 0
defaults.pcm.device 0
defaults.ctl.card 0
(When I had no sound)
To No avail -
Tried a few others too like dell - and their combinations.
How do you generate the alsa conf file (Which Is also ref'd in your previous post) I'd be happy to post mine ---

Take Care, Thanks for your thoughts I really hope this sound thing gets fixed or we can help it get fixed -- kind of annoying right?
pwnie

Re: Losing Sound on 14 MATE: What files to backup?

Post by pwnie »

as far as i know asound.conf doesnt exist in /etc or /home/user/.asoundrc unless you make one.

see: http://alsa.opensrc.org/.asoundrc see low inthe page on a script to generate and force a default card, i havent really played with that direction yet, so nothing positive to report. also the patches to acpi on the gentoo page i didnt try, as alsa is newer in raring/13x.

the 3.7.x and 3.8.x kernels will see more with regard to SPDIF connectors on this hardware. Since i am still willing to distribution hop i tried xubuntu-64bit raring daily build 2/14 with 3.8.0-x kernel, this coupled with the newer ACPI and alsa, is a bit better for the card management, and sees more sources, ports.

Right the NVIDIA is the digital sound over HDMI, it will also incidentally, never break on you.

This machine remains 'different' on reboots vs cold boots still, with raring i even got a kernel panic on a reboot.

ALSA treats the speakers here as a boolean on/off vs a level and PCM level to that controls overall volume, I believe the pulse and OSD (keyboard controls) are usually controlling the HDMI sink output sound level as it never seems to adjust my speakers or headphones.

I just did raring install last night, i will not be able to confirm the sudden loss of sound, however i think 3.7.x kernel is going to be better for someone seeking mint 14/ubuntu 12.x and stability, as i already got one kernel panic on a reboot of course, this machine hates reboots vs cold on linux. Makes me wonder, i have grub2 on sdb (linux install) and now i wonder if chainloading from windows 7 loader on sda to sdb grub2 install migh be part of that on occassion, however i know it's not the source of the sound flakyness.

No combination has solved the nvidia-settings thinking the laptop is on battery all the time and not showing correct clocks, furthermore i think the FERMI support under linux is still not to the nice point in windows since almost no one is reporting similar benchmarks in Heaven4/Opengl testing on same hardware linux vs windows, really pointing at nvidia. Nouveu on this laptop gave me very poor 3d performance. I even tried xorg-ppa-edgers 313.xx with no improvement.

Back to the sound, i'm still stumped to begin with why it ''dissapears", as i have no found something that changes. I do see a lsit of the following behaviors to make it happen.

run sound out on HDMI to a real source...reboot, speakers are possibly gone
reboot with HDMI in, especially if in windows first and using HDMI, sound almost definitely gone to speakers/headphones.


My opinions so far, the acpi_os_name="Windows 2009" or acpi_name="Windows\ 2009" might need passing to the kernel at grub2, that is due to the fact decompling of the DSDT is looking for OSI values on what windows you have, however what this fixes, if anything, is unknown to me, but i do know there is no entry spot for 'Linux'. I also think we need to solve the 3 errors in the DSDT and recompile it but again not sure what the end benefit will be perhaps none of them being even remotely related to the sound.

on the 680m at least you arent going to get the performance you will under windows until nvidia fixes 304/310/313 (313 might be the worst actually) FERMI support for linux, it works but not to full potential.

I do wonder if turning off the discreet video kills HDMI sound out and makes alsa/pulse happy, im wondering how the machine would look with an install with discreet off then booting to discrete on, if alsa would be less confused.
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