[solved] Sound stopped working, hardware or software ?

[Tony0945]

I had the sound muted for a long time on my MSI B350 Tomahawk Arctic motherboard.
Today I unmuted it, but no sound. I tried booting three different kernels, 5.4.8, 5.3.18, and 4.19.98 - no difference. Previously sound had worked. Ran speaker-test on all sound devices - absolute silence. I checked the BIOS - enabled.

First problem is to determine if it is software or hardware. Tomorrow I can look for a cheap speaker set to see if the speakers died, but I think it unlikely.
Possibly the ALC 892 on the motherboard has failed.

I booted a Void Linux livedvd but couldn't get youtube to play in Firefox. Does the Gentoo livedvd play sound? Any other ideas how to test the hardware short of installing Windows?
I do have a spare hard drive with XP on it but surely there are no XP drivers for this late model motherboard.

[e3k]

for live cd test i recommend knoppix. the sound works now in FF in the latest version.
also did you start alsamixer to check the channel levels? press F6 to get the list of your sound cards.
to x-check your speakers don't you have headphones you could plug in to your sound card?

[Tony0945]

Yes, I checked aplay and alsa-mixer. Used alsa-mixer to unmute.
No headphones, just the speakers.
Will burn a knoppix and test.
If it doesn't work, I'll unplug the speakers and carry them to a known working machine (this one!). If they work and knoppix doesn't, then that pretty much leaves a motherboard issue. I'm pretty sure it's out of warranty.
I'll look for a used sound card then. (I'm not an audiophile)
If knoppix works then it's pretty much a software problem.

[NeddySeagoon]

Tony0945,

What does /proc/asound/devices hold ?

[e3k]

Yes, I checked aplay and alsa-mixer. Used alsa-mixer to unmute.
No headphones, just the speakers.
Will burn a knoppix and test.
If it doesn't work, I'll unplug the speakers and carry them to a known working machine (this one!). If they work and knoppix doesn't, then that pretty much leaves a motherboard issue. I'm pretty sure it's out of warranty.
I'll look for a used sound card then. (I'm not an audiophile)
If knoppix works then it's pretty much a software problem.

also to troubleshoot the sound system feel free to plug in an mp3 player, cellular phone or any kind of AUX audio source for the modern devices. for this you might need a cable!

How does your audio cable going from PC -> Soudsystem look like? That could be broken too....

[Tony0945]

Tony0945,

What does /proc/asound/devices hold ?

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 # cat /proc/asound/devices
  2: [ 0- 3]: digital audio playback
  3: [ 0]   : control
  4: [ 1- 0]: digital audio playback
  5: [ 1- 0]: digital audio capture
  6: [ 1- 2]: digital audio capture
  7: [ 1]   : control
  8: [ 2- 0]: digital audio capture
  9: [ 2]   : control
 33:        : timer

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 # aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 0: ALC892 Analog [ALC892 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

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 # lsmod |grep alsa
cx18_alsa              16384  2
cx18                  135168  4 cx18_alsa
snd_pcm                94208  5 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,cx18_alsa,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_core

cx18_alsa is a TV card (input). the HDMI is associated with the video card. I'm assuming that it's an output to a monitor with speakers.
The TV software is silent also. I'm assuming (again) that's because I can't send sound to the speakers or they are not working.

Everything has been working for years. I do do a weekly portage update and build usually on Sunday.

[NeddySeagoon]

Tony0945,

Card 0 is your HDMI video output, that's the default card unless you changed it
Card 1 is your analogue sound card
Card 2 is your TV capture card.

This should be clear from

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alsamixer -cX

where X=0..2

Only card 1 will have lots of controls, including sliders. Your speakers should be attached to the pale green socket on your motherboard.

Make a file

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/etc/asound.conf

Containing

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defaults.pcm.card 1
defaults.pcm.device 0
defaults.ctl.card 1

This tells Alsa that you want to use card 1 device 0 by default.

In

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alsamixer -c1 

be sure all the outputs with IEC or SPDI/F in their names are muted, or you will send sound to the digital output of the on board sound card and that's not what you want at all.
Master, Front and PCM need to be unmuted and set to about 70%

What happens now?

-- edit --

If you want to capture sound from card 2, you need to fiddle with /etc/asound.conf some more.
Right now, its trying to capture from the HDMI video card, which is output only, so that will be disappointing :)

[e3k]

i usually disable the unneeded stuff in BIOS..

[Tony0945]

Your speakers should be attached to the pale green socket on your motherboard.

Big problem in that all sockets are black in keeping with the "artistic concept" of the board. I'd insert a rant about computers as works of art rather than functional machines, but I'm sure you feel the same way. I'll have to dig up the manual but I think the center jack of the thee with speaker icons is the right one. The one to it's right (up if the board was down flat) produces a loud continuous buzz. ?????

I configured /etc/asound.conf as requested.
Here is the old asound.conf:

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$ cat /etc/asound.conf.old
 defaults.pcm.card 1
 defaults.ctl.card 1

I configured alamixer as requested. This involved reducing from 100 to 71. I had run them up to 100 in an attempt to get an output.
I couldn't get 70, only 71 or 69. All else was as requested.

What happens now?

Absolutely nothing. I rebooted and no change.

My apologies with the late response. I have a "situation" with a bank, the IRS and my late sister-in-law's estate. Think "Inland Revenue" with the bank writing the checks to one party and reporting that they paid a different party to Inland Revenue..

EDIT: Carried the speakers upstairs and plugged them into a Windows computer. They play fine. I'm thinking the Mobo. I ordered a Turtle Beach Audigy FX card (that has the proper color coded jacks!). Then the problem will be configuring the kernel. Maybe I can load the Knoppix and run lspci and lsmod to figure out what I need.

[Tony0945]

Booted Knoppix. It took FOREVER to load! Then Firefox wouldn't even attempt to play youtube. All icons grayed out. Went to finance.yahoo.com to see if the talking heads could be heard. Also grayed out.

Back on Gentoo, built a custom 5.4.16 with make allmodconfig. Told a very long time. Linux sure has a lot of modules now. Tomorrow the Turtle Beach card is to be delivered.
I still have the open slot the Intel ethernet card was in.
Power down. Drop side of case. Insert card. Screw down card. Lift side of case back up. Reboot with allmodconfig kernel and see what loads.
That's tomorrow's agenda.

[Tony0945]

At long last I installed the Turtle Beach card, which appears to be "open box" despite advertised as "new". Also my TV card stopped working, although it has been taking a long time to initialize. It's an old PCI card.
The ALL_MODULES kernel doesn't boot. Oh, well I think the card is recognized by the regular kernels:

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 $ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Creative [HDA Creative], device 0: ALC898 Analog [ALC898 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Not that the CX18 sound is missing.

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cat /proc/asound/devices
  2: [ 1- 3]: digital audio playback
  3: [ 1]   : control
  4: [ 0- 0]: digital audio playback
  5: [ 0- 0]: digital audio capture
  6: [ 0- 2]: digital audio capture
  7: [ 0]   : control
  8: [ 2- 0]: digital audio capture
  9: [ 2]   : control
 33:        : timer

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~ $ cat /etc/asound.conf
defaults.pcm.card 0
defaults.pcm.device 0
defaults.ctl.card 0

No sound and now no TV video either.

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 $ sudo lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Root Complex
00:00.2 IOMMU: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) I/O Memory Management Unit
00:01.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-1fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:01.3 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe GPP Bridge
00:02.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-1fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:03.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-1fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:03.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe GPP Bridge
00:04.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-1fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:07.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-1fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:07.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Internal PCIe GPP Bridge 0 to Bus B
00:08.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-1fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:08.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Internal PCIe GPP Bridge 0 to Bus B
00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SMBus Controller (rev 59)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH LPC Bridge (rev 51)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 0
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 1
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 2
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 3
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 4
00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 5
00:18.6 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 6
00:18.7 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 7
03:00.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset USB 3.1 xHCI Controller (rev 02)
03:00.1 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset SATA Controller (rev 02)
03:00.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 43b2 (rev 02)
16:00.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 02)
16:01.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 02)
16:04.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 02)
16:06.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 02)
16:07.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 02)
17:00.0 PCI bridge: ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1083/1085 PCIe to PCI Bridge (rev 03)
18:00.0 Multimedia video controller: Conexant Systems, Inc. CX23418 Single-Chip MPEG-2 Encoder with Integrated Analog Video/Broadcast Audio Decoder
19:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
1e:00.0 Audio device: Creative Labs Sound Core3D [Sound Blaster Recon3D / Z-Series] (rev 01)
1f:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Caicos [Radeon HD 6450/7450/8450 / R5 230 OEM]
1f:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Caicos HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6450 / 7450/8450/8490 OEM / R5 230/235/235X OEM]
20:00.0 Non-Essential Instrumentation [1300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Zeppelin/Raven/Raven2 PCIe Dummy Function
20:00.2 Encryption controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Platform Security Processor
20:00.3 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Zeppelin USB 3.0 Host controller
21:00.0 Non-Essential Instrumentation [1300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Zeppelin/Renoir PCIe Dummy Function
21:00.2 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 51)

[Tony0945]

GOT IT WORKING!

Google told me "amixer -c 0 set Master playback 100% unmute" That worked. Using alsamixer should have also, but didn't.
Maybe I didn't even need a card. Anyway six hours into today, it finally works. Good tones on Youtube so maybe it was worth it.

The snd_emu10k1 driver was the wrong one. snd_hda_intel is the right one.[/code]