Re: two sound card problems
On Thu, 2010-09-02 at 21:20 -0400, Damon L. Chesser wrote:
> Debain Sid.
>
> 2.6.32-5-amd64
>
> lspci -l |grep -i audio:
>
> 00:04.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 AC'97
> Audio Controller (rev a2)
> 05:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc RV620 Audio device [Radeon HD
> 34xx Series]
>
>
> I actually stopped using Debian for about a year because of this, but I
> insist of finding a solution. The problem: from a stock install the
> ATI Audio device becomes card 0 and is the default audio device. The
> problem is that is my Video card and I am not using video out for
> anything but running my monitor.
>
> I have searched for a solution and only have a partial one now:
>
> in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf I added to the bottom of the list:
>
> blacklist snd_hda_intel
>
> blacklist snd_hda_codec_atihdmi
>
> This stops the ATI HD hdmidi card from being "seen".
>
> My Nvidia AC97 is now card 0 and is detected by alsamixergui (or any
> other system mixer) instead of the ATI card. However, system sound
> effects are not heard even though the "speaker" in gnome is not muted
> (as it was with the ATI card). If I go into /usr/share/sounds/ and open
> a file with "move player" totem plays the file but no sound is heard.
>
> If I do the same thing with vlc, config vlc to use explicitly ALSA audio
> output, it can play the sound file.
>
> I have install pulse audio and I no longer need to select an output mode
> in the vlc config (gui) to hear sound files.
>
> I still can not use "movie player" (totem), banshi, or rythembox to play
> music with.
>
> I am at a loss as to how to get my box to just use my Nvidia AC97 audio
> card and hear system sounds, play music, etc etc except by using only
> vlc.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> aplay -l:
>
> aplay -l
> **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
> card 0: CK804 [NVidia CK804], device 0: Intel ICH [NVidia CK804]
> Subdevices: 1/1
> Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> card 0: CK804 [NVidia CK804], device 2: Intel ICH - IEC958 [NVidia CK804
> - IEC958]
> Subdevices: 1/1
> Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Answering my own question: After a long, long search.
I found this:
http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php/MultipleCards#See_what.27s_going_on
By READING /usr/share/doc/alsa-base/driver/ALSA-Configuration.txt.gz I
found the module I wanted to use as the first sound card was
snd-intel8x0 (I found this by running aplay -l and then searching the
above readme for IEC958)
Armed with this knowledge, I then modifed /etc/modprob.d/alsa-base.conf:
####//Start Section from here to the end of this section, modified to
test asla problem
options snd cards_limit=1
#^limits the snd cards to 1 slot
alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
#^ makes snd-card-0 use the snd-intel8x0 card
options snd slots=snd-intel8x0
#^ Alternative and newer way to list a card by "slot" and since I only
#have one I want to use, it will load the snd-intel9x0 to use the first
#slot
#OSS/Free portion
alias sound-slot-0 snd-intel8x0
####/End Section
Rebooted, no sound: Ran as root: alsa force-reload and I then could
use the gui players to play "music"
So, HAL/Udev are loading the other sound cards up then loads ALSA. ALSA
gets confused. forcing-reload will cause alsa-base.conf to be read and
acted on, resulting in a "working" sound system.
A more permenent solution is to
edit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base-blacklist.conf and include the modules of
the "offending" sound cards. Again, using aplay -l listed all my sound
cards and I used that to find the snd-$MODULE listed
in /usr/share/doc/alsa-base/driver/ALSA-Configuration.txt.gz that
activated that card, in my case:
blacklist snd-hda-intel
blacklist snd-ice1724
(I purchased a low end sound card. snd-ice1724 to see if would play nice
with the HDMI from the ATI Radeon. It did not).
Reboot to test. Sound is good off of the Nvidia AC97 sound card,
alsamixergui and all other mixers are using the AC97 sound card, players
are all using the AC97 sound card.
All of this because I purchased an ATI Technologies Inc RV620 LE [Radeon
HD 3450 video card that had built in "HDMIDI".
I also only ran into this problem with Debian, not Ubuntu, not Fedora
13. Don't know if this is a bug, feature, or was inserted just to
torment me?
HTH someone else.
>
>
>
> --
> Damon
> damon@damtek.com
>
>
--
Damon
damon@damtek.com
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