Asus N750JK audio and video not working properly

[freen]

Update 28/8/2014:
After much searching/tweaking/reinstalling there's still no joy.
Neither the nvidia GPU nor the sound card, nor the bluetooth adapter work properly. For the benefit of anyone who finds this thread later:
I advise anyone who owns this notebook and is considering installing linux: DON'T DO IT.
I also advise anyone who's using linux and considering buying this notebook to buy something else.

As for me, I'll be switching back to Windows for the first time in 10 years.

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Original post:

Hi,
I just bought an Asus N750JK-T4068H notebook and installed Linux Mint 17 on it.
Most things work pretty well, but the more advanced features of audio and nvidia video do not.
In short, despite having some very powerful hardware, a Geforce GTX 850M and a high quality sound system from Bang and Olufsen, Linux Mint gives me no access to the nvidia card and a horrible tinny sound from the speakers.

The problem with the video card is a combination of the fact that it's an optimus setup, which despite the best efforts of the coders working on bumblebee, doesn't work properly, and the fact that the Mint repositories are so far behind wth the nvidia drivers they provide. This means users with newer GPUs have to make use of unsupported repos or directly download the driver from nvidia, potentially sending them into dependency hell or trashing their X system entirely.
I trust that in due course these problems will be solved, but right now it's a bit of a nightmare.

The problem with the audio seems to be that alsa can't access the sound card properly and I only get sound coming from the tiny speakers in the front of the notebook, rather than all the speakers. (The notebook has 4 built in and comes with a dedicated external subwoofer)

I'm not holding out much hope that these issues can be solved immediately, and really it's my fault for not researching more fully. I've made this post in case there are others with this notebook or something similar who have had some success, and as a warning to anyone with this notebook who might be considering installing Mint (or Ubuntu) on to it.

[PatH57]

Hi,


concerning the graphic card for the moment you have to manually install the nvidia drivers and bumblebee
or use
https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ubuntu/ppa
To revert to official packages, install the ppa-purge package and run "sudo ppa-purge xorg-edgers". I did try it for my radeon card and I could switch back to stock radeon without problems.

concerning the sound, this could work.

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sudo apt-get install alsa-tools-gui

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hdajackretask

check "show unconnected pins"

pin 0x1a

check override and select "Internal speaker(LFE)"

install boot override

edit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
add

options snd-hda-intel model=asus-mode4

edit /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
add

default-sample-channels = 3
enable-lfe-remixing = yes

edit /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/extra-hdmi.conf
add

[Mapping analog-surround-21]
device-strings = surround40:%f
channel-map = front-left,front-right,lfe,lfe
paths-output = analog-output analog-output-speaker
priority = 7
direction = output

Reboot
in the sound options select

Surround 2.1 Output

and check the sound again.

[freen]

Hi PatH57. Thanks for the quick reply!

Firstly, the audio stuff...
I did everything you said, and it seemed to make sense.
After rebooting I notice a new entry "Speakers" in the sound settings dialogue, in between "Digital Output" and "Analogue Output"
Then, switching to "Analogue Surround 2.1 Output", it's the same as it was before, but now the subwoofer is working. However, I'm still not getting sound from the main speakers.
Interestingly, when I try "Analogue Surround 4.0 Output", the rear right channel is being sent to the subwoofer.

So, there's progress, but it's not quite there yet.

----
With the video stuff, I did indeed install the driver from xorg-edgers ppa (currently it's v343). I've also installed bumblebee and can successfully run Blender using optirun. However, Blender is still unable to detect a usable GPU, meaning I can't access all that power for rendering.

Once again, thanks for your help so far

[PatH57]

Interestingly, when I try "Analogue Surround 4.0 Output", the rear right channel is being sent to the subwoofer.

only hope is to get updates that will address correctly the sound card. Did you check if a bug report was filled for this? you could then append yours to it.

[freen]

only hope is to get updates that will address correctly the sound card. Did you check if a bug report was filled for this? you could then append yours to it.

I'm trying to understand the problem a bit better before submitting a bug report, to make sure it makes sense. So far I haven't found any existing bug reports.
So you think it's to do with the audio driver, and not pulse or alsa?

[PatH57]

it's probably a bit of both.
Did you actually try pavucontrol? it has more settings maybe one could work.

[freen]

Yeah, I tried pavucontrol, same results.
BTW, it's a Realtek ALC668

I'm looking further into it and will update the top post once I solve it

[PatH57]

check these (seems the chip detected is not correct.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... ug/1332900
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... ug/1332900

Also check package manager for linux-firmware seems a new one is there (at least I had one for kernel 3.15.9)

[freen]

Yeah, it turns out Mint doesn't support this soundcard or this GPU.
I tried to get the bottom of it by submitting a bug report, but it was labelled invalid without any explanation.

[PatH57]

forgot to ask

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uname -a

[freen]

forgot to ask

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uname -a

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Linux fishmoo 3.13.0-24-generic #47-Ubuntu SMP Fri May 2 23:30:00 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

(BTW, "fishmoo" is the name of my notebook)

[PatH57]

you could try a newer kernel as it brings fixes to drivers also.
3.15 fixed some strange problems I had with power management and fan management. (I could remove the grub "tweaks" I had)

[freen]

Please excuse the dumb question, but how do I do that? I have the latest version in the official repos, and backports is enabled.
Is there another repo I should add?

Edit: I just tried this method, which left my laptop unbootable. I'm now back on a fresh install.

[PatH57]

there is no dumb question.

Here is the process for it:
For 64-Bit Systems
Download the .deb packages.

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wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.15.10-utopic/linux-headers-3.15.10-031510_3.15.10-031510.201408132333_all.deb

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wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.15.10-utopic/linux-headers-3.15.10-031510-generic_3.15.10-031510.201408132333_amd64.deb

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wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.15.10-utopic/linux-image-3.15.10-031510-generic_3.15.10-031510.201408132333_amd64.deb

Install them.

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sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.15.10-*.deb linux-image-3.15.10-*.deb

Reboot the system.

optional to remove the kernel 3.15.10

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sudo apt-get remove linux-headers-3.15.10-* linux-image-3.15.10-*

[freen]

Ah... just saw your reply. I did this but then cinnamon would no longer start. I didn't know how to fix it, so I did a fresh install.
Is it a really a good idea for a user like me to manually install a kernel? How will this work with future updates from the repos?
I might try just one more time, since this is a fresh install and it's not a big deal to redo it.

[PatH57]

updates will still work as normal.
If you can't reboot just hold shift at boot until the grub menu appears and manually select the entry with the old kernel.

[freen]

Thanks for all your help so far!
Yeah, just tried again on a fresh install. It doesn't boot up.
Reverted back to 3.13

[PatH57]

that's definitely a problem with the graphic card driver and the kernel.
So it "works" with the old kernel, and crashes with the new one.
The way I would troubleshoot this is first install the new nvidia driver reboot then only do the kernel upgrade (so it will integrate the newer driver.)
Did you have to use extra grub options? (that does intact a newer kernel)
I had once the case that I had to reboot in the old kernel,add nomodeset to the new kernel entry in grub and reboot with the new kernel.

[freen]

I did that, and it now boots up with the new kernel!
Unfortunately, all the same issues remain.
I installed bumblebee, bumblebee-nvidia and primus and tried to run Blender, but apart from taking longer than usual to start, there was no difference; I can't access the GPU for rendering.
I read somewhere that you need to run it first as root, so I tried this.

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sudo optirun -v apps/blender/blender

When trying to switch the compute device in Blender's user prefs, the error message in the console is:

modprobe: FATAL: Module nvidia-uvm not found.
CUDA cuInit: Unknown error

Also, when I run

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lsmod | grep nvidia

I get no results at all.
Does this offer any clues?

Now I'm going to have another look at the sound and see if that's working with the new kernel.

[PatH57]

didn't even know that they use CUDA for this and it seems it is broken in some drivers.
except trying beta drivers I 'm out of ideas?
Also I can't replicate your setup as my PC is a bit older and uses radeon as hybrid system.
Let's hope someone else will find a suitable way to fix this or newer drivers in a near future but I think you have identified most of the problems so you could post a bug request or append to one.