ALSA driver trouble

[Guest]

I installed Kubuntu 9.10 about two weeks ago, and the other day I installed the latest versions of alsa-drivers, alsa-lib and alsa-utils, hoping that would get the microphone working.
The audio worked fine until I reebooted, when a window saying that an audio device had been removed, and now i have no sound at all. I've got a HP Pavilion dv6 with an Intel HDA STAC92 card.

Can anyone help?

[dibl]

Re: ALSA driver trouble

I have the same STAC chip on my Intel motherboard.

First, have you played with the System Settings > Multimedia > Device Preference list? On mine, it works best with PulseAudio on top, and HDA Intel (STAC92xx Analog) in second position. Use the "Test" button and see if any of them are working.

If no, then the question becomes whether the hda-snd-intel driver needs a special option for your motherboard. There's an option database on Ubuntu Forums -- check the link to FAQs in my signature, and go to the one for Audio, and there's a link there to the options database.

Also, don't underestimate the ability of updates and new kernels to turn off your audio "Master" or "PCM" channels, both of which need to be activated and unmuted.

Hope this helps.

[jtsmith73]

Re: ALSA driver trouble

When I upgraded to Karmic, my KMixer had all my digital audio features turned down. I had to play with the mixer settings to get my digital mics and normal audio to work. I'd check with the mixer settings first (open up all the channels and pay attention to the digital settings) before messing with significant driver files.

Cheers

[Guest]

Re: ALSA driver trouble

I've tried adding the options for my laptop to the alsa-base.conf file, and I then realised that i didn't have pulseaudio, so I installed it.

Now when I turn on the computer it says that the STAC92xx analogue doesn't seem to be working and falls back to pulseaudio, while the Nvidia HDMI audio out put is grayed out on the Device Preferences list. Also, the mixer has the speakers muted every time I switch on, and the audio doesn't work in certain games.

[dibl]

Re: ALSA driver trouble

You need to take those Phonon error messages with a grain of salt. Mine reports that Pulseaudio crashes, but pulseaudio plays just fine.

However, if in System Settings > Multimedia you will move Pulseaudio up to the top position, then you should not see that message.

Yes, the speakers need to be unmuted, but they should stay that way once you set them. I don't know anything about HDMI -- no such feature on my hardware.