Kubuntu 8.04 speakers not working

[Guest]

Hello,

I'm new to linux and decided the Kubuntu would be my first distro to try. So far I'm happy with the decision, but I'm having one problem. I can't get sound to come through my laptops speakers. I'm using a inspiron 9300 that has a Intel ICH6 sound card. I've looked around at solutions that have been presented for others and here is what I've got.

Typing aplay -l gives me

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: ICH6 [Intel ICH6], device 0: Intel ICH [Intel ICH6]
 Subdevices: 1/1
 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: ICH6 [Intel ICH6], device 4: Intel ICH - IEC958 [Intel ICH6 - IEC958]
 Subdevices: 1/1
 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

which I take to mean that the sound card is seen. Messing around with KMix I have found out that if I turn on PCM and have External Amplifier turned on then I can get sound to come out of the system, but it comes out of hardware and not through speakers. Also adjusting any other setting in KMix doesn't seem to do anything including adjusting the sound levels that come from the machine.

I have also tried resetting alsa and I believe even rebuilding alsa.
I have also looked into the system->sound system properties. Everything in there is currently set to default settings, but tweaking these hasn't led to any results (though I'm not really sure what I could do there that would lead to results).

Any thoughts? Thanks for the help.

[aged hippy]

Re: Kubuntu 8.04 speakers not working

I found it necessary - after many, many sweary-words - to go into the BIOS and turn off the on-board sound.

This may be the problem that you're running up against.

By the way, Welcome.

[Guest]

Re: Kubuntu 8.04 speakers not working

Unfortunately it would seem that I can't do that with the inspirion 9300 bios. A similar case is listed on the dell website and they recommend deleting the driver for windows and the issue results with no real solution.

http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_audio&message.id=34534&c=us& l=en&cs=&s=gen

Any other ideas? And again thanks for the help.

[aged hippy]

Re: Kubuntu 8.04 speakers not working

No, i'm afraid none at all, other than to use the on-board sound, and not the sound card.... if that's at all feasible.

[divide0]

Re: Kubuntu 8.04 speakers not working

Open a terminal and type "alsamixer". Then copy and paste your results. I have sound running through headphones only with this configuration:

┌──────────────────[AlsaMixer v1.0.15 (Press Escape to quit)]──────────────────┐
│ Card: HDA Intel │
│ Chip: Realtek ALC262 │
│ View: [Playback] Capture All │
│ Item: Master [dB gain=-4.50] │
│ │
│ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ │
│ │ │ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │ │ │ │ │
│ ├──┤ ┌──┐ └──┘ ├──┤ ├──┤ └──┘ │
│ │OO│ │OO│ │MM│ │MM│ │
│ └──┘ └──┘ └──┘ └──┘ │
│ 90 100<>100 100<>100 0<>0 0<>0 │
│ < Master > Headphon PCM Front Mic Mic Boos │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────── ─────────────────────────────┘

Yeah, the picture is kinda off...when I want sound to come from my laptop speakers, I unmute the "front" option. "MM" means that the channel is mute.