DebuggingSoundProblems

Revision 2 as of 2005-07-25 04:19:25

Clear message

Do not report problems on this page; use the normal support channels.

  • Check that sound is unmuted and that the volume is turned up
    • I found it hard to find these controls: its not the "sound" in preferences; click on panel; add to panel; volume controls; speaker icon appears on panel; left click on icon; preferences; played around here and it worked
  • Most sound problems are the result of failed hardware detection, so see DebuggingHardwareDetection

  • When reporting a problem, include (in addition to the information requested in DebuggingHardwareDetection):

    • Output of aplay -l

Contributed by Carl Karsten

Here are the commands and web sites I found helpful in getting sound working.

carl@ubuntu:~$ aplay -l

aplay: device_list:200: no soundcards found...

Script to gather specs about sound things: http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php?page=aadebug

To try to figure out what sound card (chip set) you have:

$ lspci -v and lspnp -v, look for lines like this:

0000:01:05.0 Multimedia audio controller: C-Media Electronics Inc CM8738 (rev 10)

or

06 ESS1878 multimedia controller: audio

“A word about compatibility: even though most sound cards are claimed to be SoundBlaster compatible, very few currently sold cards are compatible enough to work with the Linux SoundBlaster driver. “ - http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Sound-HOWTO/x96.html#AEN120

If you have an ISA card, you MUST pass isapnp=0 to modprobe.

If you have an ISA card, you may need to get the IRQ and IO ranges. IRQ 5, DMA channel 1 and 0, IO 0x0220-0x022f, 0x0388-0x0388, 0x0330-0x0331

Now figure out which module you need.

http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/

Pick the manufacturer, Go – This should make it clear what module you need.

http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/doc-php/template.php?company=ESS+Technology&card=.&chip=ES18xx&module=es18xx

snd-es18xx

Between that, modinfo <module>, and linux/Documentation/sound/alsa/ALSA-Configuration.txt:

  • Module snd-es18xx
    • Module for ESS AudioDrive ES-18xx soundcards. port - port # for ES-18xx chip (0x220,0x240,0x260) mpu_port - port # for MPU-401 port (0x300,0x310,0x320,0x330), -1 = disable (default) fm_port - port # for FM (optional, not used) irq - IRQ # for ES-18xx chip (5,7,9,10) dma1 - first DMA # for ES-18xx chip (0,1,3) dma2 - first DMA # for ES-18xx chip (0,1,3) isapnp - ISA PnP detection - 0 = disable, 1 = enable (default) Module supports up to 8 cards ISA PnP and autoprobe (without MPU-401 port if native ISA PnP routines are not used). When dma2 is equal with dma1, the driver works as half-duplex. The power-management is supported.

You should be able to figure out a line like this:

  • sudo modprobe snd_es18xx isapnp=0 port=0x220 mpu_port=0x330 dma1=1 dma2=5 irq=5 fm_port=0x388

Hopefully no errors. If so, save the parameters

root@ubuntu:/etc # cat /etc/modprobe.conf alias sound-card-0 snd-es18xx options snd-es18xx isapnp=0 port=0x220 mpu_port=0x330 dma1=1 dma2=5 irq=5 fm_port=0x388

This works, but has an alarming side effect: on boot I saw "warning! /etc/modprobe.conf exists but does not include /etc/rc.modules" (or something... it scrolled off and I can't find it in dmesg or messages... where should I look?) So I am guessing there is a better pace to put module parameters.

Revised by DanielTChen

Use /etc/modprobe.d/<module name> instead, e.g.,

$ echo "options snd-es18xx isapnp=0 port=0x220 mpu_port=0x330 dma1=1 dma2=5 irq=5 fm_port=0x388" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/snd-es18xx

==

root@ubuntu:/etc # aplay -l **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** card 0: ES1878 [ESS AudioDrive ES1878], device 0: ES1878 [ESS AudioDrive ES1878]

  • Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

/usr/bin/speaker-test (beep...)

Hoary - I have sound with aplay, speaker-test and xmms, but not flash-mozilla firefox plugin

crimsun: carl: you can create an .asoundrc and overload pcm.dsp0

(never got any more on this tip)

Revised by DanielTChen

The recommended method is to use the polypaudio daemon (esd replacement) and to leave/set applications to use ESounD output. See the Sound section in /usr/share/doc/mozilla-firefox/README.Debian


A problem is the default config is OSS doesn't let 2 apps make sound at the same time. Here is a report of how it was dealt with: Basically get esd to relinquish control of the sound when its not in use. Then add mixing for oss so you can use multiple oss programs at once, like Quake3 and Teamspeak, or in my case, Wolfenstein and Teamspeak

First use section 3 here: http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/RestrictedFormats, then do this: http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php?page=DmixPlugin


Handy links:

http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php?page=OssEmulation

CategoryDocumentation CategoryCleanup