ALi M5451 soundcard plus ALSA and no sound [SOLVED]

resplin · n00b Joined: 30 Jun 2003 Posts: 7 Location: Sandy, Utah

I just bought an HP Pavilion ze4500 laptop and the last thing I have to get working on it is the sound. Sound worked under Fedora (I tried that for a day), but I can't get it to make hardly any noise with Gentoo. Here are the specifics:

Code:

alsa-lib-0.9.2
alsa-oss-0.9.1
alsa-utils-0.9.2
alsa-driver-0.9.2
alsa-xmms-0.9.12

I took all the sound modules out of my kernel except for soundcore.
lsmod reports that they are all installed correctly:

Code:

snd-ali5451 11244 0
snd-pcm 55328 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-ali5451]
snd-page-alloc 4460 0 [snd-pcm]
snd-timer 13544 0 [snd-pcm]
snd-ac97-codec 32064 0 [snd-ali5451]
snd 26212 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-ali5451 snd-pcm snd-timer snd-ac97-codec]
soundcore 3588 3 [snd

I unmuted all my channels.
I can play CDs just fine, but I get no other sound from anything.
If I turn the volume up really loud, I can hear the speakers hiss so I know that the volume is doing something.
Twice, randomly, the sound started working. I could play HomeStarrRunner and XMMS. I rebooted to see if it would continue working, but it stopped.
This line is in my dmesg about 5 times:
ALSA ../../alsa-kernel/pci/ali5451/ali5451.c:693: ali_find_free_channel: S/PDIF out channel is in busy now.

Help?!? I'm out of ideas.
Thank you.

peshwengi · n00b Joined: 01 Aug 2003 Posts: 66 Location: London, UK

I had a similar problem, my laptop sound worked fine using linux kernel sound modules, but it was unreliable and didn't always work.

I went back to the gentoo alsa guide (on the docs page) and followed it word for word... it works fine now.

torradan · Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2003 7:20 pm Post subject:

I have sound working just fine on my ze4560us

Using vanilla-sources (2.4.22)

Under sound support:

<*> Trident 4DWave DX/NX, SiS 7018 or ALi 5451 PCI Audio Core

Only thing that isn't working (which i'm looking to fix), is lack of volume controls using the buttons on the side of the laptop.
_________________
-Todd <todd@gentoo.org>
-Gentoo/SPARC Developer

ERICB · Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2003 2:46 am Post subject:

I have the same sound card and no problem with gnome app for sound. However, i had trouble with some programs using xine backend. But now all is fixed. You need to use output that is supported by your card, like mono.....do not use 5.1 sound because it won't work.

For the button on the side of my Compaq presario 2570ca, i have configure them with ACME (gnome) and it works but mute is not responding.

kurtb · n00b Joined: 05 Nov 2003 Posts: 23

This maybe a dumb question but you did add yourself to the audio group right?

resplin · n00b Joined: 30 Jun 2003 Posts: 7 Location: Sandy, Utah

Sound is working now, with the ALSA driver, but the solution is really wierd. It looks like a bug in the ALSA driver, but I haven't looked into it enough to be sure. I get sound as long as only the Master, Headphone, PCM, Line, and CD channels are unmuted. I'm not sure which of the other channels is causing the problem, or why. I haven't tested the mic, but everything else I want seems to be working now (CDs, DVDs, MP3s, OGG, etc). If I get the chance, I'll have to experiment more and try to pin down which combination of channels makes the sound go out, then file a bug report. For now I need to focus on more pressing projects.

I hadn't noticed the kernel driver before. It's hidden at the end of the list and I guess I didn't look closely enough at it. If ALSA starts giving me problems again, I'll have to try the kernel driver. For me, the big advantage to using ALSA with this chipset is that using xbindkeys I can bind keyboard events to calls to amixer to change volume settings. It works pretty good.

Thank you for all of your responses. I do appreciate it.

torradan · Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2003 10:00 pm Post subject:

I just switched from using the kernel drivers to the alsa drivers, and the sound is much better. I also ended up getting some odd volume control problems last night mucking around. one program would turn the volume way down, and I was unable to get it up again so that I could hear anything. Haven't encountered that problem yet with the alsa stuff. Will post otherwise if it becomes a problem.
_________________
-Todd <todd@gentoo.org>
-Gentoo/SPARC Developer