Very low sound solved

[grgaud]

Hi all,
I've got very low sound on my speakers. I have a Toshiba Satellite a100 with the Realtek ALC861 chip. In Windows I get good sound. In Linux, I generally don't with the exception of PCLinuxOS. I'd rather stay with Mint, I really like it, but I need to be able to set the sound louder on my speakers.

With PCLinuxOS, alsamixer does the trick by lowering the line output, but I don't even have a line output with the alsamixer that comes with Mint 4.0 XFce edition.

[Husse]

I have a similar chip with no problems. I found a new(er) Realtek driver here
http://soundcard.free-driver-download.c ... Linux.html
May help

[grgaud]

I have a similar chip with no problems. I found a new(er) Realtek driver here
http://soundcard.free-driver-download.c ... Linux.html
May help

Hi Husse, sorry for the long wait till I replied, been busier than a one-armed paper-hanger with crabs. I've tried downloading that driver with no luck, but I'll keep trying till I get it.

[grgaud]

I have the same problem with my realtec sound,

Code: Select all

sudo alsamixer

I usually have to unmute front/surround exchange and turn up master surround to get the sound working and to get the volume up from the ub3r low. just try unmuting everything in there.

I've tried playing around with alsamixer, but the controls I can get are limited. For example, I can usualy get good sound on other distros by lowing the volume on the "line-in" slide, but I don't have that available when I use alsamixer with Mint XFCE because the lin-in just doesn't work, there's no level indicator.

[grgaud]

Try and increase the PCM volume. You can find this in the right-click menu of the Volume Manager icon in the notification area.

I've already done that, PCM volume it's at its maximum setting. The problem is that I need to be able to lower the 'Line-in" slider, but it's disabled in alsamixer. In other distros, such as TinyFlux for example, alsamixer let's me reduce the 'Line-in' slider to about, say, 60-65%, which in turn gives me a much higher volume percentage to play with, but I can do that with the Mint alsamixer for some reason.

[RSimpson]

Hmm... that sounds like this problem from the previous release, though I haven't tried installing 4.0 on my Satellite yet...
http://linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 69&start=0

Nope, that doesn't work... it's already set at 100%, this can be checked by decreasing it - the sound becomes even quieter and then inaudible.

The solution is easy, though:
Add "options snd-hda-intel model=auto" to the bottom of /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base and reboot

Here is the bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... +bug/93859

(Judging by the replies, this same problem happens to all Toshiba Satellites)

[grgaud]

Hmm... that sounds like this problem from the previous release, though I haven't tried installing 4.0 on my Satellite yet...
http://linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 69&start=0

Nope, that doesn't work... it's already set at 100%, this can be checked by decreasing it - the sound becomes even quieter and then inaudible.

The solution is easy, though:
Add "options snd-hda-intel model=auto" to the bottom of /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base and reboot

Here is the bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... +bug/93859

(Judging by the replies, this same problem happens to all Toshiba Satellites)

[grgaud] Sounds like a good plan, I'll give that a try this week-end and let you know how it worked out. If this works for Toshiba Satellites in general, it might be worth putting it into the how-to section. This isn't the first time a Linux distro has given me this problem on my particular laptop, so it would be nice if others l,ike us had a reference to go to in the how-to section. Thanks for the help guys.

[grgaud]

Hmm... that sounds like this problem from the previous release, though I haven't tried installing 4.0 on my Satellite yet...
http://linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 69&start=0

Nope, that doesn't work... it's already set at 100%, this can be checked by decreasing it - the sound becomes even quieter and then inaudible.

The solution is easy, though:
Add "options snd-hda-intel model=auto" to the bottom of /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base and reboot

Here is the bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... +bug/93859

(Judging by the replies, this same problem happens to all Toshiba Satellites)

Well, that was it, lads, adding that line at the end of /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base and rebooting did the trick. My laptop sounds great now and I can hear everything nice and clear. You guys have been a great help and I thank you.

[RSimpson]

By the way, 4.0 is based on Gutsy, right? The bug report is from Feisty... does anyone know if it is present in Gutsy? If Ubuntu isn't going to fix this, then perhaps Mint should.

[Husse]

No Daryna is not based on Gutsy, but similar