Bug 694781 - No multichannel output on HDA Intel (ALC888)
Summary: No multichannel output on HDA Intel (ALC888)
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: alsa-lib
Version: 15
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
unspecified
urgent
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Lennart Poettering
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2011-04-08 11:33 UTC by Eddie Lania
Modified: 2023-06-14 06:01 UTC (History)
7 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2011-11-05 22:20:06 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Eddie Lania 2011-04-08 11:33:40 UTC
Description of problem: I have hooked-up 4.1 speakers to the line and speaker outlets on my HDA Intel (ALC888) soundcard in order to have 4.1 surround sound.

In windows this works fine.

In linux:

[eddie@e2800fedora ~]$ aplay -L
default
    Default
front:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
    HDA Intel, ALC888 Analog
    Front speakers
surround40:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
    HDA Intel, ALC888 Analog
    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
    HDA Intel, ALC888 Analog
    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
    HDA Intel, ALC888 Analog
    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
    HDA Intel, ALC888 Analog
    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
    HDA Intel, ALC888 Analog
    7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
    HDA Intel, ALC888 Digital
    IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=0
    HDA ATI HDMI, ATI HDMI
    HDMI Audio Output

However, Pulseaudio's volume control does not provide an option to enable the line-in connector to be configured as rear speaker output. So, as a result, i have no surround (multi-channel) output, only stereo on the front speaker connectors.


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

pulseaudio-gdm-hooks-0.9.21-7.fc14.x86_64
pulseaudio-0.9.21-7.fc14.x86_64
alsa-plugins-pulseaudio-1.0.22-1.fc13.x86_64
pulseaudio-module-gconf-0.9.21-7.fc14.x86_64
pulseaudio-libs-0.9.21-7.fc14.x86_64
pulseaudio-module-x11-0.9.21-7.fc14.x86_64
pulseaudio-libs-glib2-0.9.21-7.fc14.x86_64
pulseaudio-module-bluetooth-0.9.21-7.fc14.x86_64
pulseaudio-utils-0.9.21-7.fc14.x86_64


How reproducible: Always


Steps to Reproduce:
1. Connect surround speakers to line-in connector on HDA Intel (ALC888).
2. Try to configure 4.0 surround
3.
  
Actual results: No option to enable multichannel (not detected)


Expected results: Pulseaudio should detect this card properly and, like in windows, provide an option to enable the line-in outlet to be set for analog output to the surround speakers.


Additional info:

Comment 1 Eddie Lania 2011-04-16 20:10:57 UTC
It took me a lot of googeling but i found the solution.

1. I had to put the line: "options snd-hda-intel model=3stack-6ch-dig power_save=10" to /etc/modprobe.d/dist-alsa.conf.

2. Reboot.

3. Start alsamixer and with F6 select "0 HDA Intel"

4. Use left/right arrow keys to select "Channel"

5. Use up/down arrow keys to select "4ch".

6. Push escape key to exit alsamixer.

7. Execute "pulseaudio -k".

8. Execute gnome-volume-control and go to the tab "Hardware" and select Profile "Analog Surround 4.0 Output + Analog Stereo Input".

Done.

Comment 2 Eddie Lania 2011-04-17 09:29:38 UTC
After a reboot, I found out that the 4 channel settings as I set them in comment #1 , were restored to 2 channel settings again.

So, I went googeling again and found a workaround.

After doing the steps 1 to 8 as described in comment #1, do the following additional steps also:

9. log in as root

10. Do "alsactl store 0 alsamixer_config_0"

11. Edit /etc/rc.d/rc.local and add the line "/sbin/alsactl restore 0 alsamixer_config_0"

12. save the changes and reboot.

done

Now, why does this whole soundcard multichannel thing has to be so complicated?

There should be a better, more user friendly solution.

Comment 3 Eddie Lania 2011-06-02 11:10:59 UTC
Same issue exists in F15.

Comment 4 Eddie Lania 2011-07-31 18:03:35 UTC
This is getting frustrating; in order to keep the settings as i described them in comment #1 and comment #2, i have to redo them over and over again because they disappear after a while. I guess some package updates are responsible for "undoing" my changes.
Anyway, this has to be solved so that my multi-channel adaptations are being kept permanently.

Regards,

Eddie.

Comment 5 Pascal Klein 2011-08-12 12:35:22 UTC
I have a similar issue with Intel HDA (ALC1200). After updating Fedora I got only sound from the center and front-left speakers. The configuration dialog of pulseaudio showed me options from stereo up to 7.1 surround but only two channels actually work (tested with speaker-test).

Doing the steps 1 to 12 from comment #1 and comment #2 solves the problem.

Kind Regards,
Pascal

Comment 6 Cassy Titus 2021-04-19 05:01:23 UTC
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Comment 7 joypatel 2023-06-14 06:01:03 UTC
The bug report you linked to is about a problem with PulseAudio not detecting multichannel output on HDA Intel (ALC888) soundcards. The bug was reported in 2012 and has not been fixed yet.

There are a few workarounds that you can try if you are experiencing this problem. One workaround is to use the command line to configure PulseAudio. You can do this by running the following command:
https://quickbookintegration.com/square-quickbooks-integration
Code snippet
pacmd set-default-sink <name of surround sound output>


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