From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040510 Description of problem: gnome-volume-control doesn't change the volume of sound. The only exception is when I move the PCM slider in the "C-Media Electronics CMI9739 [Audio Mixer (OSS)]" tab all the way to the bottom; then it mutes it entirely. Otherwise, it's either on or it's off, with no range of level. None of the other sliders do anything at all in this tab, and none of the sliders in the "Intel ICH5 [Alsa Mixer]" tab do anything -- in fact, some of them won't even move. Also, the volume and balance sliders in xmms don't have any effect -- so I'm not sure if the problem is with gnome-volume-control or the sound subsystem in general. Here are the details of my system: [centaur@tara centaur]$ uname -a Linux tara.sunnydale 2.6.5-1.358smp #1 SMP Sat May 8 09:25:36 EDT 2004 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux [centaur@tara centaur]$ lspci 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82865G/PE/P DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 02) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82865G/PE/P PCI to AGP Controller (rev 02) 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI #1 (rev 02)00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI #2 (rev 02)00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI #3 (rev 02)00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI #4 (rev 02)00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02) 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801BA/CA/DB/EB/ER Hub interface to PCI Bridge (rev c2) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) LPC Bridge (rev 02) 00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) Ultra ATA 100 Storage Controller (rev 02) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp. 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) SMBus Controller (rev 02) 00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02) 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV35 [GeForce FX 5900] (rev a1) 02:03.0 Ethernet controller: Linksys NC100 Network Everywhere Fast Ethernet 10/100 (rev 11) 02:04.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10) [centaur@tara centaur]$ lsmod Module Size Used by snd_mixer_oss 17792 2 snd_intel8x0 30888 6 snd_ac97_codec 54916 1 snd_intel8x0 snd_pcm 76420 2 snd_intel8x0 snd_timer 22404 1 snd_pcm snd_page_alloc 12036 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm gameport 7424 1 snd_intel8x0 snd_mpu401_uart 9088 1 snd_intel8x0 snd_rawmidi 21792 1 snd_mpu401_uart snd_seq_device 10120 1 snd_rawmidi snd 43876 15 snd_mixer_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device soundcore 10336 3 snd parport_pc 23616 1 lp 12300 0 parport 34632 2 parport_pc,lp autofs4 15488 0 sunrpc 110280 1 tulip 41376 0 8139too 22656 0 mii 7552 1 8139too floppy 52336 0 sg 32288 0 scsi_mod 97224 1 sg microcode 10400 0 reiserfs 195540 1 dm_mod 37536 8 uhci_hcd 28188 0 ehci_hcd 26760 0 button 8472 0 battery 10892 0 asus_acpi 12440 0 ac 7308 0 ipv6 214624 10 ext3 108136 11 jbd 50328 1 ext3 Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): gnome-media-2.6.0-1 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: Try to use the gnome-volume-control program; it mostly doesn't do anything. Actual Results: No volume control -- except PCM slider at bottom position will mute. Expected Results: Volume control Additional info:
alsamixer behaves the same way.
Sounds like it might be a hardware thing. Quoting from http://opensrc.org/alsa/index.php?page=intel8x0 : ============ For everyone who's missing volume control with his CMedia 9739 onboard sound chip, here are the facts I found out so far. This chip is used at least on Epox 8RDA3+ and maybe in every newer nforce2 chipset. (Who knows where else it is used?) The general problem with the 9739 is that it doesn't have a volume control in hardware. As the technical reference (avail. at http://www.cmedia.com.tw/e_t_twp.htm) states, there is no PCM volume register on chip, only a PCM muting register. Strangely, it also states that there is a _Master_ volume register where you should be able to set the volume (not only muting)! But I had no success using it; changes to that register have no effect. Maybe this is a hardware bug, or the tech reference is wrong. BTW. CMedia's OSS driver does volume control in software, so they know about the problem... So it seems that the best solution is to use some kind of software volume control. To get the chip in fact working under Linux, there are several possibilities: * use intel8x0 driver (and an external volume control, maybe at the speaker) Pro: mostly works (stable etc.) Con: you need an external volume control; and it's not very elegant :) * use intel8x0 driver and an extra sound demon (eg. KDE's artsd) Pro: works; and the sound daemon has volume control Con: not every app supports those sound daemons (but xmms and mplayer do); you have one program more running in background; the daemons are not always reliable (that's my experience); you need to use a specific program for setting the volume (eg. kmix) * use CMedia's OSS driver (avail. at http://www.cmedia.com.tw/download/e_UDA9738_linux_01.htm) Pro: built by manufacturer :) ; has built-in volume control Con: only usable with old OSS (Open Sound System), AFAIK not usable with ALSA; didn't work reliably for me * curse CMedia for building such a crappy chip; curse them again for not releasing an ALSA driver; curse NVidia for using such a crappy chip (older nforce boards had a better chip onboard..); in the end, buy an extra soundcard and be happy :) Pro: it does work really well (if you buy a good card and not an el-cheapo for 9.95 EUR which features as chip a 9739 :) Con: additional costs to your PC; takes a PCI slot BTW. I think I also tried the nforce2 soudn driver; it worked stable, but had no volume control as well... Well the (probably) best solution would be to integrate generic software volume control in ALSA; that means to write an ALSA plugin that does about the same as CMedia's driver does: rescale every sound sample to the desired volume. CMedia's driver is under the GPL, so their algorithm could be used. I've heard that such a plugin is planned, but I don't know about the current status. Ask at Alsa-devel mailing list (https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-devel) about it. More about ALSA plugins: http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/alsa-lib/pcm_plugins.html Good luck, Oliver
Sounds like an alsa issue.
Fix comes with alsa 1.0.8. There is plugin for software volume control.
If you have new kernel (in devel is alsa 1.0.8), you can try use SW volume plugin. You have to create file .asoundrc in your home directory with: $cat .asoundrc -------------------------------------------------------- # # Default output # pcm.!default { type plug slave.pcm { type softvol slave.pcm "hw:0,0" control { card 0 name "PCM Playback Volume" } } } -------------------------------------------------------- Of course, this is only simple testing example for one card without dmix and other plugins. You can control volume using "PCM Playback Volume" slider. Let me please know, if it works for you. Thanks
Ok, I fetched and installed the alsa-lib-devel-1.0.8-1.devel alsa-lib-1.0.8-1.devel rpms, created ~/.asoundrc as above, and tried to change the volume using alsamixer. The Master control still has no effect, and now I can't manipulate the PCM control at all. In fact, if I try to mute it, I get a segmentation fault. gnome-volume-mixer behaves the same as it did before, except that now the PCM section in the "Intel ICH5 [Alsa Mixer]" tab has 32(!!) sliders that won't move. Same as with alsamixer, if I try to mute the PCM in that tab I get a segmentation fault.
Fedora Core 2 is now maintained by the Fedora Legacy project for security updates only. If this problem is a security issue, please reopen and reassign to the Fedora Legacy product. If it is not a security issue and hasn't been resolved in the current FC3 updates or in the FC4 test release, reopen and change the version to match.
It should be fixed in FC4.
Can anybody check it on FC4?
Yes, software volume control seems to be working in FC4. I tried it in both alsamixer and in gnome-volume-control. Thank you.
Thanks for testing.