Ubuntu

Only Front Speakers Work (with muddy, not crisp sound) in 5.1 Surround Speakers, Ubuntu 8.10, ASUS M3A79-T with ADI Ad2000B 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC

Asked by jackson

Hello all,

I recently purchased an ASUS M3A79-T with onboard sound, ADI AD2000B 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC. I installed Ubuntu 8.10, everything worked great, except sound. I had a legacy Logitec 2-speaker and subwoofer combo plugged in to the green "front" plug, but the subwoofer was not engaging, and the sound was not clear. I had used these same speakers on a prior ASUS motherboard with an AC97 chip, and Ubuntu 8.10, with fantastic results.

So I thought maybe the 8-channel ADI AD2000B on the ASUS M3A79-T motherboard wanted the surround plugs filled for proper sound. So I bougth a Logitec X-530 5.1 Surround Sound set, assembled, plugged in the color-coded jacks for front, center/woofer, and rear. Fired it up, and still only have sound in two front speakers, and muddy sound at that. I have to turn the volume up halfway just hear the output. Neither the subwoofer or the rear speakers are engaging at all.

I'm not a tech wizard, but love my Ubuntu 8.10 and the music I listen to on it, and have searched the web looking for an answer. I've seen a couple of replies related to ALSA, but they were for not sound, and were not helpful in fixing this. Plus, I was under the impression we were moving to Pulse Audio anyway. I also saw a reference to enabling "multichannel playback" in Ubuntu, but I can't seem to find anything like that in the menus.

If there is some driver that is out there (the only thing on the ASUS CD is an old ALSA driver) or configuration change I can make that will enable the ADI AD2000B Hi Def sound, I'd greatly appreciate a pointer.

Thanks

jackson

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Solved by:
AFarris01
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Revision history for this message
jackson (jack-whitley) said : 		#1

I found a couple of commands to try to list sound device info on my machine, including the information below in case in might be helpful.

Thanks again for any help or pointer you might provide.

jackson

----------------------------------------------------------------

Motherboard - ASUS M3A79-T
Onboard Sound - ADI Ad2000B 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC

-----------------------------------------------------------------

jwwjr@jwwjr-desktop:~$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: AD198x Analog [AD198x Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 1: AD198x Digital [AD198x Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: ATI HDMI [ATI HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

------------------------------------------------------------------

jwwjr@jwwjr-desktop:~$ lspci -v | less

00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
        Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 8288
        Flags: bus master, slow devsel, latency 64, IRQ 16
        Memory at fe7f4000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
        Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV610 video device [Radeon HD 2400 PRO]
        Subsystem: VISIONTEK Device 3210
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18
        Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
        Memory at fe8f0000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        I/O ports at b000 [size=256]
        Expansion ROM at fe8c0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: fglrx_pci
        Kernel modules: fglrx

01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc RV610 audio device [Radeon HD 2400 PRO]
        Subsystem: VISIONTEK Device aa10
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 19
        Memory at fe8ec000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
        Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

Revision history for this message
jackson (jack-whitley) said : 		#2

Hello again,

As additional information, I went out and downloaded the Jaunty 9.04 Alpha 3, and burned a live CD, as I understood it has a newer version of the kernel that might fix this.

I'm typing this from the live CD Jaunty 9.04 Alpha 3, but the sound problem persists. Very muddy sound only from the two front speakers, and no sound from sub-woofer or rear channels.

So some sound is getting to the front, but not 8-channel high-def sound on a 5.1 speaker set.

I guess I could throw in the towel and try to find a PCI sound card, but this board only has two PCI slots. Any driver or configuration pointer for ADI AD2000B 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC would be most appreciated.

This could also help others with this motherboard and sound chip.

Thanks again,

jackson

Revision history for this message
Tom (tom6) said : 		#3

Hi,

I don't know much about sound but maybe this site can help ...
http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php/TroubleShooting

Alsa seems to have quite a few flaws so it might be worth posting this as a bug report.

Good luck with this
Regards from
Tom

Revision history for this message
Tom (tom6) said : 		#4

If you are still having trouble with this then please post it as a new question. Only the most recent questions tend to get looked at so posting/reposting a question just before america arrives online gives the best chance of getting a good few answers.

If the problem has been resolved then please follow the link to the forum thread and mark it as Solved.

Good luck and many regards from
Tom :)

Revision history for this message
Best AFarris01 (afarris01) said : 		#5

i dont know if you've tried this yet, but hey...its worth a shot:

you need to configure pulseaudio to tell it you have 6 speakers it can yell through (5 satellites and the sub) as it only defaults to 2... you do this by editing its config file... this can be done globally, or on a per-user basis. I prefer the per user myself, but i'll include both here for completeness.

so...for global settings, run this in terminal:
           sudo gedit /etc/pulse/daemon.conf

scroll down to the line in the file called "default-sample-channels", delete the semicolon in front of it, and change the 2 to a 6, save, close, and restart pulseaudio (by restarting your computer, or by running "killall pulseaudio" then "pulseaudio" in a terminal) That should do it! sound should be playing from all speakers.

for per-user settings, you first must copy the config file to your 'pulse' directory. do this by running in terminal:
            cp /etc/pulse/daemon.conf ~/.pulse/

then edit it by going to the .pulse directory, and double-clicking the file, or by running:
           gedit ~/.pulse/daemon.conf

then repeat what i mentioned before for editing the channel numbers, save close etc etc...

hope that was helpful!

Revision history for this message
jackson (jack-whitley) said : 		#6

This was really helpful. Thanks!

jwwjr