No sound - SB Audigy LS on FC3

[pgtipz]

HI!

I have just installed FC3 over Mandrake 10, and now have been dealing with getting my soundcard working on my AMD 64 box. My soundcard is a Soundblaster Audigy LS. Full specs are below.

After googling for help, I have updated the ALSA drivers (1.0.7 I think!) from www.alsa-project.org, and the card is now detected but no sound. Kmix shows a number of settings, beginning with "headphones", but no entry for "master volume" or the like. Nothing is muted as far as I can see.

Loading the X desktop produces the (old) Arts error message "device /dev/dsp can't be opened (no such device).. Sound server will continue using null output device"

Another minor issue is - how to reconfigure grub (or better use lilo) to boot windoze XP Pro by default. The grub manual, http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html was confusing to me and I'm wary about editing it by hand!

My system config is as follows:

Kernel: 2.6.9-1.667x86_64
AMD Athlon 64 3000+,
FIC K8-800T Motherboard,
1 GB RAM,
250 GB Maxtor HDD & 120 GB WD HDD,
Mad Dog 5-in-1 DVD/CD-RW & 6-in-1 12X DVD+RW,
ATI A-I-W 9600 128MB AGP 8x/4X Graphics Card,
Soundblaster Audigy LS Soundcard,
Basic JBL speakers plugged into souncard, (works fine in WinXP pro)
Windows XP Professional (on first HDD),
Antec True View Case & True Power Supply,
Extra case fans,
US Robotics 56K/V92 Modem,
Cable Internet on Toshiba PCX 2600 Modem,
Generic Floppy DD,
Lexmark X75 All-In-One Printer

Thank you for any help.

Cheers!
Peter G.

[rclark]

If the sound card is detected, but no sound. First thing is to get the test sound to work. If that doesn't work -- nothing will work :o . I assume you ran alsaconf and that went ok? Since you are using KDE, type at the command prompt "gnome-volume-control" . This tool will get you a whole bunch of things to change and set. Look for mutes and for controls that are all the way down. What I did was 1) have the detect tool loaded and ready to play a test sound. 2) Then play the test sound as as you change the different controls until 'wow' you have sound sound! Make sure the volume controls on speakers are up too ;) . Once you have that working you can go about solving the 'other' problems :) . Yes, finally have sound with my SB Live but am still working through some other issues :o . Check in my SB Live thread here in hardware for other things to look at .... BTW I tried what you did and had no luck. I went back to loading the 'Updated' ALSA driver from the RedHat site and that seems to be working ....

My Thread (http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=28332)

Forgot : make sure you have loaded the 'Updates' so you are 'current' before you start hacking. There is a 'bunch' . The kernel probably being the most important. I made sure I loaded them all ....

[pgtipz]

Hi Rjc!
Thank you for the fast reply.

I did open alsaconf, but the SB audigy LS was NOT listed, although there were various SB cards in the list.. Not sure if one is generic and would work. Any suggestions?

I ran the gnome-volume-control and unmuted everything... no luck yet! I will keep trying.

Sorry for sneaking in the GRUB question, I will save that for another time.

I will let you know how it goes. I appreciate your help. I've been at this for over a day now and up 'til past 1am last night!

Cheers!
Peter G.

[pgtipz]

Hi again!
I forgot to add this-

Here is my lsmod output:

/sbin/lsmod

Module Size Used by
parport_pc 29569 1
lp 15153 0
parport 53837 2 parport_pc,lp
autofs4 30921 0
i2c_dev 14273 0
i2c_core 27841 1 i2c_dev
sunrpc 202553 1
ds 20681 0
yenta_socket 22081 0
pcmcia_core 69713 2 ds,yenta_socket
ipt_REJECT 7617 1
ipt_state 2241 1
ip_conntrack 52097 1 ipt_state
iptable_filter 3521 1
ip_tables 19009 3 ipt_REJECT,ipt_state,iptable_filter
nls_utf8 2497 2
ntfs 89984 0
dm_mod 66345 0
button 8161 0
battery 10313 0
ac 5833 0
usblp 15681 0
ati_remote 13649 0
joydev 11073 0
md5 4801 1
ipv6 292769 12
ohci1394 41305 0
ieee1394 383569 1 ohci1394
uhci_hcd 37481 0
ehci_hcd 37829 0
emu10k1_gp 4545 0
gameport 5057 1 emu10k1_gp
snd_audigyls 32720 1
snd_ac97_codec 89632 1 snd_audigyls
snd_pcm_oss 61224 0
snd_mixer_oss 21760 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 121868 3 snd_audigyls,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer 37000 1 snd_pcm
snd 66408 8 snd_audigyls,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_ oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore 12641 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 12176 2 snd_audigyls,snd_pcm
8139too 31041 0
mii 5825 1 8139too
floppy 72177 0
ext3 139985 2
jbd 91761 1 ext3

Cheers!
PG.

[Brian1]

Looks like to me your sound card modules are loaded. eme10k1 is for most SB live cards. What you need to do is run something like xmms and play a mp3 file or link to a streaming audio site. Reason saying xmms is because it shows it connected and has an equilzer displaying activity. Now run ' alsamixer '. Scroll across and start raising the outputs. I would say one of them is set to 0%. Also some may have to mute the spif channel. Once you hear sound, set it, exit and run ' alsastore -.If after reboot you have no sound again you can use ' alsarestore '

Brian1

[pgtipz]

Hi Brian1!
Thank you for the advice. I muted the spif channel in kmix and heard sound for the first time in FC3. Yippee!

However, firefox is refusing to load now, except as root, so that I can try xmms and test with streaming radio, which is weird. Though, xmms has that mp3 copyright block, so it might not play anyway!

About the ' alsastore - command , is that the exact spelling?

I am pleased to have some sound. Now I just need to get the apps to play nice and get around the xmms/firefox issues. It is very frustrating. One step forward and two steps back.

With firefox not running now as a normal user, I can only imagine that when I tried to download the flash plugin as described on, http://stanton-finley.net/fedora_core_3_installation_notes.html that it messed up the path up somehow?

The fun continues. Otherwise, thank you Brian1 and Rjc for you help, I truly appreciate your efforts.

Cheers!
Peter G.

[Brian1]

Gald you can hear now.

Sorry about that. It is ' alsactl store ' and ' alsactl restore '. I wrote a small script long time back when having this type of problem and I called the alsastore and alsarestore.

Brian1

[Brian1]

For Flash this is the way I do it and have to problems under a user account.

Extract the following files from the flash 7 plugin.
flashplayer.xpt
libflashplayer.so

* Then copy them to your master firefox plugins directory. ex of mine is /usr/lib/firefox-1.0/plugins
* Now install the mozilla-swfdec rpm through syanptic if install. If not install apt and synaptic.
* It will copy this plugin to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins. Move it to your firefox plugin folder. It has played any flash
I have seen so far. Test at http://www.mondominishow.com. Most of this should be done as root or
su in a terminal.

Never had any problem with firefox. I use the source version and not the rpm. I dislike the rpm because it leaves out a few things. I installed as root when I did this and run as user 99% of the time.
Brian1

[pgtipz]

Hi Chum!
Thanks for following up again! However, the 'alsastore' and 'alsactl store', etc., commands are not recognized at a root terminal. Weird!

I can run amixer, which gives the somewhat, truncated settings I have in kmix. At least there is sound on the system!!

Getting xmms and xmms-mp3 to install and play any mp3 is proving impossible. I can get xmms to play an ogg vorbis stream but the playback is horrendously choppy, so that you can't use that either. I am stumped as regarding what to do now.

Does anyone know how to get xmms and the xmme-mp3 plugin to work? I have tried to install the xmms-mp3 plugin from the livna repo, but it is not showing up in xmms>preferences?? The alsa 1.2.10 output plugin is selected. The xmms-mp3 input plugin is no-where to be seen under plugins of any kind.

Thank you for assistance. I'd love to hear some music!

Cheers!
P.G.

[Brian1]

aslactl is in your /sbin directory. If using a default user setup then /sbin is not in your path.

try ' /sbin/alsactl store ' May require root access to use.

Sorry the alsastore and alsarestore are scripts I have written for myself. They do not exist.

For XMMS remove it. remove your ~/.xmms config file. Reinstall xmms and plugins.

Brian1

[pgtipz]

Hi Brian1!
Thank you for your help so far. I followed your handy instructions (above) with partial success.

I am almost there, but xmms-mp3 is giving me mp3 playback that is coming out like drowning chipmonks! Although, it is good to know that the xmms-mp3 plugin is working, I have yet to get intelligible sounds from it!

I am not sure how to correct the problem. I have tried swapping around the various plugin/output settings for the output plugin in xmms, at the moment these are:

the alsa plugin is 1.2.10
and the audio mixer is set to: default
mixer card is set to: 0
mixer device= analog front

But it really sounds awful. I tried listening to a shoutcast.com stream, but the echo and choppiness in sound is overwhelmingly bad. Any suggestions?

I would appreciate help to finally resolve this xmms plugin/sound issue. I hope this will help others too, which is another great reason to use linux in the first place. ;-)

With sincere thanks,

Cheers!
P.G.