Thinkpad 600e sound hardware not detected with Ubuntu "Dapper Drake" live CD (Flight 6)

[Mathieu Brethes]

<sticks> wrote on 2010-12-09: #25

ok figured it out for Lubuntu 10.10
http://askubuntu.com/questions/16801/cs4326-7-sound-chipset-on-thinkpad-600e/16818

**** Original Description ****

The IBM Thinkpad 600e laptop uses a Cirrus Logic CS4237B sound chip (ISA, or so I'm told). When booting from the live CD, no sound is played and the sound hardware is not functional.

To reproduce, boot with Live CD on a Thinkpad 600e.

[Matthew Lange (matthewlange)]

Does the problem still exist if you install? (Ie, not running a livecd)

[Uta (utapez)]

I have installed Xubuntu on my Dell Latitude M233XT laptop which uses the same snd chip (CS4237B) on the ISA bus. I have no sound and would like to resolve this issue.

[Balder (balder79)]

Hi! Im also on a Ibm Think pad 600E 2645. none of the ubuntu distros i have installd will finde my sound card CS4237B it reads the card as a CS 4610/11 but i have no sound? This is my first time trying Linux maybe im doing somthing wrong but i have tryde diffrent ubuntu realeses but cant get it to work. exept for that small issue i think ubunt is a great product! Hope you can fix the bug/issue..

[Warren Butler (grumpymole)]

Known problem with the TP600E. The soundcard is incorrectly identified as
CS462x.

There are plenty of web pages out there describing solutions to this. But
here is the Reader's Digest version:

1. Blacklist the incorrect sound card in /etc/modprobe.dblacklist. Add lines
for

blacklist snd-cs46xx
blacklist cs46xx

as written above - with the xx's

2. Add the following lines into /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base

alias char-major-116 snd
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias snd-card-0 snd-cs4236
options snd-cs4236 isapnp=0 cport=0x538 port=0x530 sb_port=0x220
fm_port=0x388 irq=5 dma1=1 dma2=0
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1

alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss

options snd cards_limit=1

NOTE: When copying and pasting the above, make sure that the line starting
with 'options...' is *one* line ending with '...dma2=0'.

3. Add the line

snd-cs4236

to the file /etc/modules

Reboot.

Also important: During power up, if you press F2 (I think), you get into
change the config. In this you need to make sure that the Fastboot option is
*disabled*.

If you are still having no success: try adding 'acpi=off pnpbois=off' at the
end of the kernel boot params. Press 'esc' during Grub countdown and select
'e' to edit the boot command and add these to the end. If need these to
allow my Xircom PCMCIA ether card to work.

One last thing: the default starting volume is very low, so make sure that you set the volume to high using the keyboard Fn+PgUp key combination.

[Warren Butler (grumpymole)]

Having said all of the above, it would be excellent if Ubuntu is able to work out a way to make this work "out of the box".

[BrendaEM (brendieellen)]

What a hard to fix bug this is.

The standard fix, posted here, does not fix the problem on my 600e. I have fastboot disabled in the bios.

From the number of threads, it appears that a lot of people do not have working sound using any fix. It appears that less than 25% have working sound. While the 600e is an old laptop, they do have good keyboards, and I worder if leaving a standing bugs such as these bring negitive attention to Ubuntu/Linux.

On 6.06, I managed to get the sound working using a combination of two fixes, I cannot find one of them, now.

My Thinkpad 600e has no floppy. It's sad the the Linux Thinkpad setup utility tpctrl? has no provision for setting up sound. PS2.exe requires windows.

I found an thinkpad setup .iso here containing ps2.exe:
http://www.enderak.com/linux/thinkpad600/

["Kosmonaut" Bernd Müller (bernado-tornado)]

Warren Buttler wrote:
"...If you are still having no success: try adding 'acpi=off pnpbois=off...'"

Just a little notice:
I guess that you should enter pnpbios=off ,right?
(bios not bois ;-))

[David Hurst (david-hurst)]

Well... the above get me closer but it does not quite work.

Does an yone have any advice on additional pointers....

[Nanley Chery (nanoman)]

Is this bug still a problem?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for xserver-xorg-video-cirrus (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Ulfzart (ulfzart)]

As Warren Butler wrote (except, maybe the lines into /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base - i didn't add them) , and plus setting "acpi=off pnpbios=off..." makes the sound working, BUT it works TOO low.

Some people told that the sound very low even on other notebooks, still they have the hardware volume on the top, and software volume on the top too.

I've managed to find how to fix it!

run 'sudo alsamixer' and set the PCM volume hi (use arrows right/left to scroll to the PCM, and up/down to set it), after setting the right volume press Esc.
don't remember how to save it permanently (but this is listed in the HOWTO and not hard to find).

Thank you

[Ulfzart (ulfzart)]

BTW, The problem occured, when I upgraded my notebook to the new version of Xubuntu via the net.

[Sb (sb56637)]

Any good reason why this bug can not be fixed? The fact that a hack is posted here doesn't mean it's ready for the consumer. This chip is a breeze to configure with alsaconf on both Mandriva and SUSE. Only Ubuntu has always been a problem.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Why on earth was this filed against the display driver? The bug is in the kernel, and I urge you to test Hardy alpha4 (or alpha5 which is released on Friday) and give feedback if it works or not.

[wolfger (wolfger)]

Over 3 months with no response. We are closing this bug report because it is unconfirmed to exist on a current kernel, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can reproduce the problem on a current kernel, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!

[Mathieu Brethes (mathieu-brethes)]

Well, I don't have the laptop anymore anyway...

-m

Selon wolfger <email address hidden>:

> Over 3 months with no response. We are closing this bug report because
> it is unconfirmed to exist on a current kernel, as described in the
> previous comments. Please reopen it if you can reproduce the problem on
> a current kernel, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the
> future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status,
> under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks
> again!
>
> ** Changed in: linux (Ubuntu)
> Status: Incomplete => Invalid
>
> --
> Thinkpad 600e sound hardware not detected with Ubuntu "Dapper Drake" live CD
> (Flight 6)
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/40116
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Philip Kovac (pkovac)]

This bug still exists in Ubuntu 9.10 with linux-image-2.6.31-16-generic

[smontano (stevemontano)]

Also verifying that this bug still exists in Ubuntu 9.10 on a ThinkPad 600e with kernel 2.6.31-19-generic. It would really benefit many people if this bug could get assigned and fixed in future versions of Ubuntu. Thanks!

[Jim N. (jnowack)]

Seconding smontano's verification on 9.10 (kernel 2.6.31-19-generic). I'm still having the same problem with my TP600e (2645-4AU). I'm going to try the fix above to see if it still will fix the issue with current release.

[Paul (vr2bbc)]

Also seconding smontano's verification on 9.10 (kernel 2.6.31-19-generic). I'm still having the same problem with my TP600e (2645). I have tried suggested fix but it doesn't work for me, and I still can't see any internal sound cards using aplay -l

[smontano (stevemontano)]

Anybody here have any suggestions on how to get this bug assigned to somebody on the Ubuntu team? It's currently unassigned and I fear we won't see a bug fix in Ubuntu 10.04 unless we get something going. Thanks.

[smontano (stevemontano)]

I have successfully gotten the sound to work on my ThinkPad 600e on Ubuntu 9.10. Here are the steps.

* FYI, I have acpi=force enabled in Grub so there is no need to turn off acpi. I'm not sure how much of a variable acpi is for this but with acpi=force it works. (BTW, I wanted acpi=force enabled in Grub only because it allowed my battery meter to appear in the GUI.)
* Prepare your ThinkPad by making sure that you have disabled “QuickBoot” in the bios. You can check this by booting your machine while holding down the F1 key. Also it is VERY VERY important to use the bios Initialize button, then set QuickBoot back to disabled. Initializing somehow gives Ubuntu a better chance to see the sound card.
* Add this line to /etc/modules

 snd-cs4236

* Blacklist the incorrect sound card in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf by adding these two lines

 blacklist snd-cs46xx
 blacklist cs46xx

* Add these lines at the end of /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf Notice, different than instructions for previous version of Ubuntu, you have to add the "--install-ignore" and "index=0" items to the options line. Also for those not familiar, the options line needs to be one really long line that doesn't wrap to a second line in the actual alsa-base.conf file.

 alias char-major-116 snd
 alias char-major-14 soundcore
 alias snd-card-0 snd-cs4236
 options --install-ignore snd-cs4236 isapnp=0 index=0 port=0×530 cport=0×538 sb_port=0×220 fm_port=0×388 irq=5 dma1=1 dma2=0
 alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
 alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1

 alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
 alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
 alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
 alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
 alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

 alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
 alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
 alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss

 options snd cards_limit=1

* After restarting you should hear sound at the login screen. If you do not hear sound when you are loading up into your desktop, the volume icon may have an X on it. For some reason my volume was set all the way down initially so you can just turn up the volume if this happens to you too.

Hope this helps!! :)

[terryK9 (terry-kemmerer)]

I have tried smontano's Ubuntu 9.10 fix on my Ubuntu 10.04 version, but it doesn't seem to work. Has anyone gotten a fix for the 600e on Ubuntu 10.04?

[sticks (orawas)]

I have this laptop, and I've installed lubuntu 10.10 on it, which works surprisingly well! Except for this sound thing... so far its not working here. I'm trying different variations to the fixes listed here, and elsewhere. I will report back if something works... so far all I have are the system beeps when changing the volume using fn+PgUp/PgDn...

[sticks (orawas)]

ok figured it out for Lubuntu 10.10

http://askubuntu.com/questions/16801/cs4326-7-sound-chipset-on-thinkpad-600e/16818