[SOLVED] Linux mint 18.1 no sound netbook Asus eee pc x101ch

[juamba48]

I posted this under Hardware support, but I believe this is a better place for the topic.

I have been using Mint 17.2 KDE on my Asus eee pc x101ch with no problems for a couple of years. I updated to 17.3 by the end of last year and everything was working fine. I was very happy to learn of the release of 18.1 "Serena" and decided to give it a try. I chose MATE, since this hardware is not very poweful, and downloaded the ISO. Yesterday I tried it as a live session and thought everything was working alright, so I installed erasing all of my older 17.3. Later in the day, after installing all codecs and proprietary drivers, I found out that sound does not play out of the netbook speakers. If I plug headphones I do get sound, but nothing comes out of the speakers. I did some tests and this is what I get (itś in Spanish since this is my countryś language):

gisela@gisela-X101CH ~ $ cat /proc/asound/card0/codec* | grep Codec
Codec: Realtek ALC269VB
Codec: Intel CedarTrail HDMI

I checked the device and I get:

gisela@gisela-X101CH ~ $ aplay -l
**** Lista de PLAYBACK dispositivos hardware ****
tarjeta 0: Intel [HDA Intel], dispositivo 0: ALC269VB Analog [ALC269VB Analog]
Subdispositivos: 1/1
Subdispositivo #0: subdevice #0
tarjeta 0: Intel [HDA Intel], dispositivo 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdispositivos: 1/1
Subdispositivo #0: subdevice #0

Right now I am downloading 17.2, which I know works for sure in my netbook, to check if it is not my hardware.

If any of you could give me any hint as to how to get the sound to work I would really be grateful.

Merry Christmas to all

[juamba48]

Hello again. As I mentioned before, I am writing from a live session of Mint 17.2 and my sound does work. I get the same results when I check hardware and codecs>

mint@mint ~ $ cat /proc/asound/card0/codec* | grep Codec
Codec: Realtek ALC269VB
Codec: Intel CedarTrail HDMI

mint@mint ~ $ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC269VB Analog [ALC269VB Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
mint@mint ~ $

So now I am baffled at what could be the cause for the sound not working under Mint 18.1 environment. By the way, I also tried Mint 18 and the sound does not work either, I just get it when I use my headphones.

I would like to keep 18.1 on my netbook, so I will be looking forward to solving this little glitch.

Thanks a lot in advance for your help.

[jimallyn]

I don't know if this will be the solution to the problem you hare having, and I don't know why sound would work in Mint 17 and not in 18. But, this I do know: many Mint users have solved their sound problems by installing pavucontrol, then running PulseAudio Volume Control from the Sound & Video menu and messing with the settings. I posted the same suggestion to somebody else yesterday, and he posted right back that it took less than a minute to get the sound running once he tried PulseAudio Volume Control. It may be necessary to have some application actually playing (or recording) sound before it will show up in PulseAudio Volume Control.

[juamba48]

Thanx you jimallyn. I will definitely try that today. You've been very kind to help.

[juamba48]

My friend jimallyn I tried what you suggested, but unfortunately it did not work. When I ran the software installer pavucontrol showed already installed. I installed pavucontrol-dbg to see if it could solve anything, I rebooted, but nothing. I adjusted the settings, user the headphones (which do work) and messed with the settings, noticing when they did not sound, when they did, etc.
Later I installed Mint-meta-codecs, rebooted and still the speakers did not work.
I'm starting to wonder wether it could be the Kernel. Mint 17.2 runs on the 3.16 kernel and Mint 18.1 runs on the 4.4 kernel after all updates are installed.
I don't know how to install an older kernel and if Serena will be able to run on one.
What do you think?

[juamba48]

My friend jimallyn I tried what you suggested, but unfortunately it did not work. When I ran the software installer pavucontrol showed already installed. I installed pavucontrol-dbg to see if it could solve anything, I rebooted, but nothing. I adjusted the settings, user the headphones (which do work) and messed with the settings, noticing when they did not sound, when they did, etc.
Later I installed Mint-meta-codecs, rebooted and still the speakers did not work.
I'm starting to wonder wether it could be the Kernel. Mint 17.2 runs on the 3.16 kernel and Mint 18.1 runs on the 4.4 kernel after all updates are installed.
I don't know how to install an older kernel and if Serena will be able to run on one.
What do you think?

I learned how to install and load Serena on kernel 3.16.1-992 but that did not work either.
I guess I am either stuck with a netbook without sound or will have to install MInt 17.3 some time later. That's very sad because Mint 18 is very nice.

If anybody gets to solve this issue I would appreciate it could be posted here.

[Richardj]

When I first installed mint 18.1 I didn't have any sound, I did a search on another forum and some one suggested typing alsamixer in to a terminal and hit enter, it brings up the mixer from there I found a couple of the channels were muted.
Use the up/down and left/right keys to move between the different channels.

Hope this is of help.

[juamba48]

When I first installed mint 18.1 I didn't have any sound, I did a search on another forum and some one suggested typing alsamixer in to a terminal and hit enter, it brings up the mixer from there I found a couple of the channels were muted.
Use the up/down and left/right keys to move between the different channels.

Hope this is of help.

Thank you very much Richardj. I did as you told me. It took a little, but I figured how to use alsamixer. I fumbled with it for a while and finally got to the bar which showed something not in use (the bar was blank). I selected it, by using the arrows in the keyboard, increased its volume with the keyboard up arrow and BINGO!!!!!! Now my Asus Netbook has sound.
I am very grateful. I could not have done it without your help.

I wish you a very happy new year.

[juamba48]

When I first installed mint 18.1 I didn't have any sound, I did a search on another forum and some one suggested typing alsamixer in to a terminal and hit enter, it brings up the mixer from there I found a couple of the channels were muted.
Use the up/down and left/right keys to move between the different channels.

Hope this is of help.

Thank you very much Richardj. I did as you told me. It took a little, but I figured how to use alsamixer. I fumbled with it for a while and finally got to the bar which showed something not in use (the bar was blank). I selected it, by using the arrows in the keyboard, increased its volume with the keyboard up arrow and BINGO!!!!!! Now my Asus Netbook has sound.
I am very grateful. I could not have done it without your help.

I wish you a very happy new year.

Unfortunately the solution is temporary. Every time I logout and restart the netbook I get no sound once again, so I have to open a terminal and use alsamixer to get it back. I don't know if the same thing happens to you Richardj.
I will use this method whenever I need sound, but it would be wonderful to come up with a permanent solution to it.

Happy New year everyone

[Richardj]

When I first installed mint 18.1 I didn't have any sound, I did a search on another forum and some one suggested typing alsamixer in to a terminal and hit enter, it brings up the mixer from there I found a couple of the channels were muted.
Use the up/down and left/right keys to move between the different channels.

Hope this is of help.

Thank you very much Richardj. I did as you told me. It took a little, but I figured how to use alsamixer. I fumbled with it for a while and finally got to the bar which showed something not in use (the bar was blank). I selected it, by using the arrows in the keyboard, increased its volume with the keyboard up arrow and BINGO!!!!!! Now my Asus Netbook has sound.
I am very grateful. I could not have done it without your help.

I wish you a very happy new year.

Unfortunately the solution is temporary. Every time I logout and restart the netbook I get no sound once again, so I have to open a terminal and use alsamixer to get it back. I don't know if the same thing happens to you Richardj.
I will use this method whenever I need sound, but it would be wonderful to come up with a permanent solution to it.

Happy New year everyone

No problems like you describe, once I set it, it has been fine.
When in the alsamixer if you use the left/right key and keep scrolling to the right there are other channels, some don't do anything. Also if you look at top right you can select a sound card by pressing F6, try each one until it works.
The only other thing I did was play around with the sound controls, click the sound icon bottom right and select sound settings, I did this while alsamixer was still open.

[juamba48]

I will keep fumbling with alsamixer. Thanks for your help Richardj.

[juamba48]

I will keep fumbling with alsamixer. Thanks for your help Richardj.

The same thing happens: when I reboot sound doesn't work until I use alsamixer.


Well I can live with that.

TY Richardj

[Richardj]

I will keep fumbling with alsamixer. Thanks for your help Richardj.

The same thing happens: when I reboot sound doesn't work until I use alsamixer.


Well I can live with that.

TY Richardj

I also installed PulseAudio controls from software manager

I don't know if this will help, might be worth trying.

sudo apt-get remove --purge alsa-base

sudo apt-get remove --purge pulseaudio

sudo apt-get install alsa-base

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio

sudo alsa force-reload

Then:

sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indicator-sound

Then re-boot.

Have a look here: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2279687

[juamba48]

I did what you suggested, but after reboot no sound still. I use alsamixer and I get the sound. I guess I will have to live with it. I read a little off the link you sent, but I'd rather not fool with it too much for now.

Thank you very much.

Happy New Year

[sebastjava]

Hello juamba48,
This message comes in very late, but if you still have this problem about speaker OFF / headphones ON on your ASUS EeePC X101ch, here is the real way to solve it. I did read all your posts here and i can tell you i approximately went through the same steps. If you are short on time, or if you are skeptical, just look at the conclusion below and try it... It will permanently solve this issue!

I learned and combined informations taken from:

https://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/audio_intel_hda (in french...)
https://www.alsa-project.org/main/index ... _Intel_HDA
http://git.alsa-project.org/?p=alsa-ker ... xt;hb=HEAD
...and elsewhere

By looking at alsamixer in the terminal i got this info:
ASUS Eee PC X101CH = Card: HDA Intel, Chip: Realtek ALC269VB

CONCLUSION:

1. You only need to add this line of text:

Code: Select all

options snd-hda-intel model=headset-mic

2. At the end of this file:
/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

3. But to do so you need root access, so right-click on this file to open it in your text editor (xed) as administrator or as super-user. Add the text line and save the file.

4. You must restart your computer to see (and ear !) the change.

P.S.: ...Now the speaker and headphones should be all OK, but you still have a problem with the microphone... It is just noise!
Check my tutorial to solve this and many more:
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=261881

[AlexTM]

This message comes in very late, but if you still have this problem about speaker OFF / headphones ON on your ASUS EeePC X101ch, here is the real way to solve it.

Had the same problem today. Unfortunately, this only solved half of my problem. In alsamixer the second and third column were blank, this puts the third up, but not the second. (Both labeled Headphone.)

[sebastjava]

(Both labeled Headphone.)

Strange. I don't understand. My first 3 columns in alsamixer are: Master | Headphone | Speaker.
On Asus Eee PC X101ch ? With nothing plugged in the earphone plug? It is strange you have 2 Headphones columns (and no Speaker!!?). Apart from that, it is normal that only one column is up at a time: speaker is up and headphone is down, and you get the opposite when you plug in the headphones, so it is only sound from the speaker OR the headphones... Never both at the same time.

Everything still works fine here on my Asus Eee PC X101ch. Tested with Linux Mint Mate 18.1, 18.2 & 18.3 and Linux Mint Xfce 18.1. I also solved the problem with the microphone.

Asus Eee Pc X101ch and Intel Atom: Fix The Speaker And Microphone!

[AlexTM]

Seems me was slightly stupid - it's a 1011PX, didn't think about possible differences.

Anyways, a screenshot of my alsamixer; it's the 2nd column I have to pull up manually after restart. No headphones plugged in.

Screenshot at 2018-03-16 18-38-12.png

[sebastjava]

Yours is not the X101CH but it's an Asus Eee PC. It has the same HDA Intel card with the same ALC269VB chip. Reassuring to see you do have a speaker output...

I think you just need to find the exact "model" name that fits your computer:
options snd-hda-intel model=???

You could try something like this:
options snd-hda-intel model=1011PX

Or, you could try searching through the links listed at the end of my tutorial: EeePC: Fix the speaker... to find the right model name, specific or generic.

Or, you could try searching the web with keywords like: Alsa + HDA Intel + 1011PX

If you find the good answer, please share. It would be better starting your own thread, something like "No sound netbook Asus EeePC 1011PX".

[sebastjava]

P.S.: I remember, before changing /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf, headphones and speaker columns were inverted: increasing the headphones level would turn on the speaker and vice-versa. So, maybe, getting the right options snd-hda-intel model=??? could change the alsamixer display itself: you would not have 3 headphone columns, but just one?

As a last, desperate effort, you could try installing Alsa-tools-gui and "play" with the hdajackretask utility.

Here's my screenshot, Asus EeePC X101CH, after following my tutorial: Asus Eee Pc X101ch and Intel Atom: Fix The Speaker And Microphone!