make my laptop sing to me

[Roybert]

okay, so i have a new laptop running FC5. There is a known problem with this laptop and its sound. This problem has a 100% bulletproof solution... that i cant use cuz no one knows what it is. They just know it exists.....

So i have an ASUS F3JM laptop. When i do the soundcard thing in admin,, i do not hear the sound, no matter what i do.

Ive been told inserting the code

options snd-hda-intel model=uniwill-m31

in my modprobe file will work. Thats what everything i find says to do. So, i simply put it at the end of the file with VIM and saved. Still nothing, i really want to get FC5 to work on this sucker becuase i sept so much tiem getting everythign else to work, and i cant survive without sound. Please help me : )

[Dies]

Personally, I would have gone with FC6, since it's newer there's much more of a chance that things will "just work", haha, yeah right, what am I talking about this is Linux and you're using a laptop.

So, that's my advice figure it out on FC6.
That way if you still can't at least you'll have the latest and greatest. :D

[Roybert]

i prefer FC5 or as i call it Legacy Core 5 : P But yes, i appricate the suggestion, but after everythign i put into it with FC% there is no turning back. Ive past the point of ne return here : ) Anyone else?

[marko]

I was reading that for that laptop you need the very latest alsa, which sort of
makes sense being such brand new hardware:

http://linlap.com/tiki-index.php?page=Asus+F3Jm

this said to use alsa 1.0.14rc1 or later(available from
ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/lib/ ), and use:

options snd-hda-intel model=asus-laptop

in the modprobe.conf file. Also, even after you reboot with
that in the modprobe.conf, remember alsa sometimes
needs you to use the mixer to crank up the volume
(alsa might be playing but so quiet you think it isn't until
the levels are setup)

Note, as this is out in the wild for
longer, alsa in the fedora repository will catch up and you
could just install all this via yum. But for now you'd need
to compile and install the alsa library.
Mark

[donaldm]

I have never used FC5 but it should be similar to FC6 so you may want to download the "alsa" sound libraries (use the livna repo) which supports quite a few sound cards so it is possible your laptop sound card is supported. In addition you could try your control center (KDE) since that can use different sound drivers.

As a last resort you could try recreating your sound files with /dev/MAKEDEV (see manual before doing this) and while a reboot may not be necessary it would not hurt.

If none of this works and no one can suggest something better I would suggest installing FC6 (don't do an upgrade - my opinion for what it is worth) although I can sympathise that it can be a pain to upgrade when nearly everything works on a previous release. But I do agree with Dies, sometimes you just have to do a fresh install to get around an annoying problem To ease the pain you may want to image your machine for a quick FC5 recovery if FC6 does not fix your problem, or at the very least (no going back if you do this) backup your /home and /usr/local (if appropriate) file-systems as well as your /etc directory and any configuration files. It sometimes helps if you say to yourself you are going to test your disaster recovery procedures, which can save you a lot of issues in the future.

An installation of FC6 should take approx 1 to 2 hours and if all goes well you should have a working machine. I can't say that sound will work for you like it did for me on my Presario 6000 (AMD dual core) laptop so this is why I suggest you do an image first. I still have a few issues on my laptop (head pone socket does not work, but that is not a high priority) but I am very pleased with my install. If you do a "yum" upgrade (strongly suggested after all important things work) you are going to download approx 1G so you need a fast line or a lot of patience.

[Thetargos]

I was reading that for that laptop you need the very latest alsa, which sort of
makes sense being such brand new hardware:

http://linlap.com/tiki-index.php?page=Asus+F3Jm

this said to use alsa 1.0.14rc1 or later(available from
ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/lib/ ), and use:

options snd-hda-intel model=asus-laptop

in the modprobe.conf file. Also, even after you reboot with
that in the modprobe.conf, remember alsa sometimes
needs you to use the mixer to crank up the volume
(alsa might be playing but so quiet you think it isn't until
the levels are setup)

Note, as this is out in the wild for
longer, alsa in the fedora repository will catch up and you
could just install all this via yum. But for now you'd need
to compile and install the alsa library.
Mark
Just an addendum to this:


Install the alsa-lib, alsa-driver and alsa-utils. Starting by the lib, then leave the driver at the end. You will require the kernel-devel package to be installed.
Build the driver with the options you require (--with-oss=yes --with-cards=hda-intel --with-card-options=all --with-sequencer=yes at ./configure time), then install it.
Drop to a system terminal (ctrl+alt+F1) after a logout in your X session so that the device is not being seeked or in use. Unload any unnecessary [alsa] modules (/sbin/lsmod and /sbin/rmmod any unnecessary modules, particularly those labeled "snd_hda")
Load the module you need, and you should follow a syntax similar to that found in the alsa-project's website as examples for the module and options instead of the "dirty" trick used in FC's modprobe.conf.
modprobe the driver (and log out from that system terminal, return to X [ctrl+alt+F7] and log back in, test).

[marko]

you can also speed up the FC6 install as far as the yum update by using the
latest "re-spin" since a lot of the updates are rolled in already. I used
a FC6 re-spin at work to update a development PC, it worked fine.

re-spins (http://fedoraunity.org/re-spins)

the newest one is Jan 11,2007

Mark

[Roybert]

okay, i installed hte latest version of alsa and changed the code i added to what was states with the asasu-laptop. I can now here thats default system sound, but nothing else. Only that 1 thing plays for me.

[Thetargos]

What do you mean by "system sounds"? Do you mean that you have the sound server enabled on your Session so you have sound events for stuff like login, menu, buttons, warnings, etc?

Sadly recent sound cards in order to become cheaper had to give up hardware poliphony, i.e, you can only hear one stream at a time, and depending on the applications, "sound server", etc, your card may get "highjacked" by a program, in this case, your sound server (either aRTs or ESD, depending if you're on KDE or GNOME, respectively). This doesn't sound too good, does it? Well, there is a chance, given that now pretty much every application is ALSA compliant, that means that ALSA can make use of a plugin to "softmix" several sound strems into one (that work was usually delegated to the sound server), the dmix alsa plugin should be set to work, however if you use system-config-soundcard to set that up, you'll get your modprobe settings overwritten, so you may want to run the application previous backup of your settings, and then restablish them in modprobe.conf. Especially, you should enable the dmix plugin for the currently detected card (the card will be detected based on the currently loaded module, i.e snd_hda_intel.

[Roybert]

actually it just randomly srted working for some reason : )

[Roybert]

and now, it randomly stoped workign again....

[Thetargos]

I don't get this, you installed the latest RC ALSA or not?

[Roybert]

i installed the latest rc asla and the sound on my laptop worked for a time. Then randomly stoped. I opened alsamixer, and my master volume dosnt even have a bar to fill, its just empy. I have cd turned up all the way and i have the staticy its up to loud sound. any ideas?

[Thetargos]

You have unmutted the channels, right? Master, PCM, etc?

[marko]

Roybert, I found a URL where a quirk of the F3JM is that you need to crank up
the volume via the PCM slider, the others won't work right in the mixer.
REF the audio section of this wiki:

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_Asus_F3JM

Mark

[Roybert]

Thanks Macro! and Thetargos! You to were a big help : )

[Thetargos]

Glad I could help