Intel High Definition Audio (Intel D945GNT MB) no audio in FC4

[Jeffwsi]

Greetings..

I have installed FC4/i686 on an Intel D945GNT motherboard. The install was fresh.

I have not been able to get a peep out of the audio device even though it was automatically recognized during intallation and some modprobe.conf entries were generated. I have read many posts here about the Intel High Def Audio and have tried several things but none work. I am hoping some kind soul reads this and takes pity on me as I have burnt hours on this with no results..

lspci:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Memory Controller Hub (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation PCI Express Graphics Port (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Class 0403: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 01)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 01)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GR/GH/GHM (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 01)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GR/GH/GHM (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR (ICH7 Family) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.2 RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation 82801GR/GH (ICH7 Family) Serial ATA Storage Controllers cc=RAID (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV43 [GeForce 6600 GT] (rev a2)
07:03.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82546GB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 03)
07:03.1 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82546GB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 03)
07:05.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)
07:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) LAN Controller (rev 01)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

/etc/modprobe.conf:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
alias scsi_hostadapter ahci
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
options snd-card-0 index=0
options snd-hda-intel index=0
remove snd-hda-intel { /usr/sbin/alsactl store 0 >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; }; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-hda-intel
alias usb-controller ehci-hcd
alias usb-controller1 uhci-hcd
alias ieee1394-controller ohci1394
#alias bond0 bonding
#options bond0 miimon=100 mode=6
alias eth0 e100
alias eth1 e1000
alias eth2 e1000
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyone have ideas as to why this is not working?

Thanks!

[maclinux]

Have you updated you system to the latest alsa and kernel 2.6.12. Alsa 1.0.9 is required for Intel hi-def audio to work. The 2.6.12 kernel version has alsa 1.0.9 built in to it so you might have better luck if you update those 2 things.

[Jeffwsi]

I have both 2.6.12 and alsa 1.0.9 and it is a still a no go. I have been digging and I think I know the problem...

The D945GNT motherboard has Intel HDA based on the Sigmatel 9923 codec. After digging into the kernel source for 2.6.12-1.1390_FC4 I found that there is no support for the stac9223 codec. The snd_hda_intel loads but the codec seems unsupported.

If I run alsamixer or the Gnome mixer I only get a PCM device to set/enable/disable and I should have many more devices and switches.

Anyone know of a way to get Sigamtel stac9223 codec support??

Thanks!

[steve941]

I had no sound at first, and I added an external amplifier in volume control.. Works great now.

[Jeffwsi]

How did you do that? Can you explain in detail?

[steve941]

Run gnome-volume-control by clicking applications then sound and video then volume control. Now click edit, preferences, scroll to the through (should be at the bottom) and look for External Amplifier, click it, click close. A new tab will appear in volume control called Swithes, your sound should now work if not make sure all the options in Playback are high and unmuted.

[Jeffwsi]

When I do that the only option I get is "PCM". Nothing else.

I have since discovered that Intel's HDA utilizes a number of different audio codecs. It turns out the Intel HDA on the D845GNT motherboard uses an 8-channel 7.1 codec made by Sigmatel, model 9223 (STAC9223). There is no support for this codec in the Intel HDA (snd-intel-hda) kernel module. The STAC9223 is latest/greatest stuff so it will take someone with connections at Sigmatel to get enough data on this chip to generate a working driver.

Life without sound is so....... quiet. =(

[Jeffwsi]

I found the answer to get the Intel HDA based on Sigmatel's STAC9223 7.1 8-channel codec under FC4.

Download, compile and boot 2.6.13-rc3 from kernel.org. In this version patches for the STAC9223 has been added to the sound/pci/hda driver source.

Once I rebooted this new kernel and ran alsa-mixer or gnome-mixer I had the correct devices. Add the xmms w/ mp3 rpms from FC3 and I'm golden.

I am listening to The Clash as I type this...

[daneel971]

did you managed to control volume and to get 5.1/7.1 sound?

[Melio]

Steve, I had someone with a dell inspiron try your method and it worked for them.

nice work finding this out.

[rathed9]

If anyone can now figure out why a Fujitsu laptop with the usual integrated AC97 sound card has no sound (running KDE) even tho the volumes are up on alsamixer and kmix....we can make enough noise to wake the baby....heh

[tombone]

I found the answer to get the Intel HDA based on Sigmatel's STAC9223 7.1 8-channel codec under FC4.

Download, compile and boot 2.6.13-rc3 from kernel.org. In this version patches for the STAC9223 has been added to the sound/pci/hda driver source.

Once I rebooted this new kernel and ran alsa-mixer or gnome-mixer I had the correct devices. Add the xmms w/ mp3 rpms from FC3 and I'm golden.

I am listening to The Clash as I type this...

Jeff, thanks for the info.
I hate to say it but I'm new at this and hoping to do what you've just suggested. Could you give me more explicit instructions? I'm trying to upgrade from 2.6.12-1.1447_FC4-x86_64.
Thanks

[roberto8080]

I'm running FC4, updated the kernel to 2.6.13 (smp) and the sound from D945GNT works well but I hear a background noise when sound is playing, anyone else is experimenting that?

It's a little annoying

[dludenar]

People

Thanks for the information, I am new at Linux Fedora Core 4, could you please post the details of the solution of these problem, principal ,the part of the dowinload and the compile part.

I hope you please help us.

Regards

[VdeGrandpré]

alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
options snd-card-0 index=0
options snd-hda-intel index=0
remove snd-hda-intel { /usr/sbin/alsactl store 0 >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; }; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-hda-intel

For me it sound like your system is recognizing your sound card but is immediately removing it...
You should remove (comment):

alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
options snd-card-0 index=0
and, the most important :
remove snd-hda-intel { /usr/sbin/alsactl store 0 >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; }; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-hda-intel
that line is removing your devive from the confguration... Even if you have an alias for it, if the reference does not exists, you sound processes will be dumped to /dev/null ..

This is it! It worked for me with my SBLive, I had the same problem.

Vincent de Grandpré,
Montréal, Québec