Low sound with 2.6, alsa and sb5.1

kruemel0809 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 21 Sep 2004 Posts: 124

hi!
I have a Soundblaster 5.1 running on a 2.6.8-gentoo-r3 kernel! The problem is that the volume of the card is extremely low. I connected the card via the green outlet with my reciever and i have to turn it up to -25dB to hear a faint sound! All bars in alsamixer are at maximum and Master and PCM in amixer are at 100.
I would really apprechiate some help!

Btw: i followed the alsa howto while setting up the soundcard exept i have everthing in my kernel and no modules!

Beetlejuice321 · n00b Joined: 04 Oct 2004 Posts: 5 Location: Minnesota USA

Yeah, I am having the same problem to!

I have used Kmix to adjust my volumes, but the "Master" volume does not work! Only Wave Surround, Bass, and Treble!

Also the sound sucks!

I have tried re-emerging Alsa, and I build in driver support for emu10k1 when I built my kernel.

Can someone please help!

My system is:

Soundblaster 5.1 (Live!)
Gentoo kernel 2.6.8-r3 (just built the system a couple days ago)

Note: everything worked fine under Suse 9.1 using 2.4 kernel.

I know there is something wrong, but I just can't figure it out! I am just about to throw away this card, and just use on board audio and recompile my kernel!

Thanks,

Beetle

Beetlejuice321 · n00b Joined: 04 Oct 2004 Posts: 5 Location: Minnesota USA

Dude, I fixed our problem! Follow the steps listed here to get Alsa to work correctly! Zeeeesh!!! I wish they would have mentioned some of this in the damn installation! I had no idea I had install all this just to get Alsa to work right!

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml

Oh and don't forget to play around with the "alsamixer" utility! The settings for the soundblaster are crazy!!! But when you get it configured the way you want, the sound is great! And all programs in KDE seem to work fine with adjusting the volume etc!

Note: In the "/etc/modules.d/alsa" I configure the Soundblaster 5.1 Live accordingly.

#ALSA portion

alias snd-card-0 snd-emu10k1
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0

(I think these OSS ones are option, but I included them. You could try running them w/o them selected though and see how it works!)

#OSS/Free portion - card #1

alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss

Well I hope your problem was the same as mine, and this solution works for you! Good luck!

Beetle

tcma · Apprentice Joined: 28 Jun 2004 Posts: 208

Another solution to increase volume is:

amixer sset 'VIA DXS',0, 31

kruemel0809 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 21 Sep 2004 Posts: 124

i did everything suggested in this thread, but nothing seems to work! i upgraded to the 2.6.9 kernel, bulid alsa as a module and emerged the latest version, but my low volume problem is still there!
does anyone else have an idea?

tjfriese · Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2004 6:33 am Post subject:

Tanj · Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2004 5:00 pm Post subject: