Only PCM volume control takes effect

[Zachary Waldowski]

I'm using Gutsy Beta, with fully updated packages as of 5 Oct 2007.

The PCM volume control appears to be the only one that has effect. This means that I can only have REALLY loud, and REALLY soft, leaving me no room for comfort. I have tested this using the GNOME volume control applet and the Sound (System>>Preferences item) panel, using the test sound and adjusting the Master and PCM controls.

This appears to be a problem in any ALSA greater than 1.0.14rc2. I'll note that this problem also occurred with ALSA compiled on Feisty, with the Gutsy kernel on Feisty, in Gutsy itself, and in the latest ALSA compiled on good ol' Gutsy.

I have an HDA-Intel sound card. To be specific, I have a Compaq Presario V5204NR, with an onboard Conexant HD sound card. To further this, partial output of my lspci is "00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)".

I'll post more info as soon as I figure out how to upload text files.

EDIT: This appears to be related to this bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.22/+bug/120515 . However, it is listed as fixed while, or me at least, it clearly isn't

[Zachary Waldowski (zwaldowski)]

Ah, here we go. LSMOD with sound modules.

[Zachary Waldowski (zwaldowski)]

aplay with -l switch

[mykrob (myk-robinson)]

I have the same model laptop, a Compaq V5204NR, and can confirm the same behaviour in Kubuntu 7.10 beta. I have tried even in the console using alsamixer, and adjusting the master volume slider has no effect whatsoever on the volume. Perhaps as a workaround, someone can confirm how to make the laptop volume buttons adjust PCM instead of Master? Or, better yet, find out what's up with Alsa...

thanks,
-myk

[hazelkid (hazelkid)]

Same thing here. Only PCM works, and it is also buggy :(

00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Unknown device 9761
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21
        I/O ports at d800 [size=256]
        I/O ports at dc00 [size=64]
        Memory at ff27f800 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512]
        Memory at ff27f400 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

[didko (deyanmihaylov)]

Same model laptop and problem here. I have no problems with 7.04

[BoomSie (gideon-poort)]

Same problem over here, also joined the #alsa channel for this. Someone was kind enough to point out to me that the Master/Mixer changes the wrong device when used.

So in my language, it means that 0x1d is the master/mixer and I'm changing the 0x13 device id instead with the master/mixer buttons. I got the master mixer ID from someone with this technical sheet: http://doriath.cz/alsa/boomsie.png (please don't ask me why it isn't 0x19, the guy was pretty sure about it)

My complete Alsa information can be found here: http://pastebin.ca/744732

Also I don't know wether to report it over here or at the alsa development team. Anyway, I already saw this bug report over here, so I join the team here.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Changing status to confirmed since multiple people seem to have the same issue.

[Tom Chance (tom-acrewoods)]

I have a similar problem, though it may warrant a separate bug report.

Only the PCM control has any effect on the volume.

Additionally, my desktop computer (Dell Optiplex GX620) has a built-in speaker and the headphone socket. Both play sound when I run speaker-test, though interestingly in the GNOME Sound Preferences dialogue if I test playback I get different results with different device choices. So "Intel ICH7 - IEC958" doesn't produce any sound with either the built in speaker or the headphones. "Intel ICH7", "ALSA", "OSS" and "Autodetect" produce sound for both simultaneously (so headphones don't stop the internal speaker sound).

Some relevant output:

$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: ICH7 [Intel ICH7], device 0: Intel ICH [Intel ICH7]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: ICH7 [Intel ICH7], device 4: Intel ICH - IEC958 [Intel ICH7 - IEC958]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

$ lspci -v
00:1e.2 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Dell Unknown device 01ad
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21
        I/O ports at ec00 [size=256]
        I/O ports at e8c0 [size=64]
        Memory at febffa00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512]
        Memory at febff900 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
        Capabilities: <access denied>

[Henrik Nilsen Omma (henrik)]

This bug was nominated for Gutsy but does currently not qualify for a 7.10 stable release update (SRU) and the nomination is therefore declined.
According the the SRU policy, the fix should already be deployed and tested in the current development version before an update to the stable releases will be considered. With 7.10 now released, that policy applies to this bug. See: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates .
The bug is not being closed as work will continue on fixing it for the next release, Hardy Heron (8.04). If the state of this bug should change such that it qualifies for the SRU process, please contact the person who originally declined it and ask them to re-evaluate it. To help improve the state of this bug see: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/HowToTriage .

[HeWhoE (hewhoe)]

I have the same problem with Gutsy. The problem persists with Hardy Heron Alpha 3.

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Unknown device 30a5
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21
        Memory at d0340000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [60] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-
        Capabilities: [70] Express Unknown type IRQ 0

[Matt Briançon (matt-briancon-deactivatedaccount)]

Posting on behalf of my roommate who has the same problem with his HP dv5020us notebook with the same sound card as in the original post.

He's running Gutsy. Thanks all.

[HeWhoE (hewhoe)]

The problem persists with the Hardy Heron beta updates.

[Miguel Branco (arlanthir)]

Same here, and PCM volume change doesn't work properly, i.e. when I hold VolumeUp it increments the volume a random number of bars and then starts from the beginning (mute).

[Miguel Branco (arlanthir)]

Added another bug report for the above mentioned random factor in:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/208006

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

There are efforts to provide a virtual software Master control, and much of that (ongoing) work is present in 8.10 alpha 6. Please try an 8.10 alpha 6 desktop image to attempt to reproduce the symptom.

Note also that with the inclusion of PulseAudio in 8.04, this symptom's severity is considerably lessened.

@Miguel Please file a separate bug for the nondeterministic hotkey behaviour.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

(Scratch the last address of the previous comment ;-)

[rusivi2 (rusivi2-deactivatedaccount)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue that you reported should be reproducible with the live environment of the Desktop CD development release - Maverick Meerkat. It would help us greatly if you could test with it so we can work on getting it fixed in the next release of Ubuntu. You can find out more about the development release at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/. Thanks again and we appreciate your help.

[DavidW617 (davidw617)]

I am still seeing this bug in Precise. Volume is either very loud or very quiet. Please let me know what information I can provide to remove the incomplete status.

Description: Ubuntu precise (development branch)
Release: 12.04

alsa-base:
  Installed: 1.0.24+dfsg-0ubuntu3
  Candidate: 1.0.24+dfsg-0ubuntu3
  Version table:
 *** 1.0.24+dfsg-0ubuntu3 0
        500 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

pulseaudio:
  Installed: 1:1.1-0ubuntu5
  Candidate: 1:1.1-0ubuntu5
  Version table:
 *** 1:1.1-0ubuntu5 0
        500 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ/P/PL Memory Controller Hub (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ/P/PL PCI Express Root Port (rev 02)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 2 (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.3 USB controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1e.2 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR (ICH7 Family) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation N10/ICH7 Family SATA Controller [IDE mode] (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family SMBus Controller (rev 01)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5751 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 01)

[dino99 (9d9)]

closing that old report, as it has not got recent comment.