Audio/SameHardware - Ubuntu Wiki

To determine whether a bug is a duplicate or not, it is important to verify that the hardware is the same. Here's how to do that.

Internal cards: Checking PCI SSID

For PCI soundcards and sound cards on the motherboard, first check the PCI SSID (SSID is short for "SubSystem ID"). If these don't match, the hardware is different. There might be more than one entry, so make sure that it is the sound card in question that you're comparing.

Given a proper apport-collect, you'll find an attachment called "PciMultimedia.txt". It looks something like:

00:14.2 Audio device [0403]: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) [1002:4383]
        Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device [1458:a022]
        Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=slow >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
        Latency: 32, Cache Line Size: 4 bytes
        Interrupt: pin ? routed to IRQ 16
        Region 0: Memory at fe024000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
        Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

You'll find the PCI Vendor-ID on the first row [1002:4383] and the PCI SSID on the second row [1458:a022].

Given an alsa-info report, look for this line:

!!Advanced information - PCI Vendor/Device/Susbsystem ID's

and below it you'll see something like:

00:1b.0 0403: 8086:284b (rev 03)
        Subsystem: 1043:8284

The PCI Vendor-ID is "8086:284b" and the PCI SSID is "1043:8284".

To compare your own machine, run the following terminal command:

lspci -vvnn

You'll get a long list of entries similar to the one listed above, browse through the list to see if any entry has equal IDs to the ones in the bug report.

HDA Intel cards (the most common on-board sound card)

Most new laptops and desktops (as of 2010) comes with an HDA-Intel on-board sound card. If that applies to you (or your bug report), in addition to the PCI SSID check above, you must also check the Codec's vendor-ID and SSID.

Given a proper apport-collect, you'll find an attachment called "Card0.Codecs.codec.0.txt" (the number 0 can differ).
Given an alsa-info report, look below a line looking like this:

!!HDA-Intel Codec information

To compare your own machine, you'll find a file called "/proc/asound/card0/codec#0" (the number 0 can differ).

To find the Codec's Vendor, SubSystem and Revision, look for something like this:

Codec: Realtek ALC883
Address: 0
Vendor Id: 0x10ec0883
Subsystem Id: 0x10438284
Revision Id: 0x100002

If you have more than sound card, or more than one codec, they will show up as different numbers in "Card0.Codecs.codec.0.txt" and "/proc/asound/card0/codec#0". In alsa-info, all codecs are just listed.

USB Sound cards

TODO

Quick and easy way to determine the hardware that is on your own machine

1. open a terminal using ctrl+alt+t

2. copy and rightclick-to-paste the following commands into it, hitting enter if needed

LC_ALL=C cat /proc/asound/card*/codec#* | LC_ALL=C fgrep --before-context=4 --after-context=1 "Subsystem Id"

then

LC_ALL=C lspci -vvnn | LC_ALL=C fgrep --after-context=1 "Audio device"

3. select the output with the mouse, and rightclick-to-copy it onto the clipboard.

4. paste the information into an email, forum, bug-report, search engine, or similar.

This information includes the exact PCI SSID of your motherboard, of your codec-chips, and of your soundcards (if any). For an explanation of what the output means, or to reproduce the steps manually if you have problems with these shorthand commands, please see above.