Sound does not work in feisty or gutsy on a new T61P (snd_hda_intel)

[Michael R. Head]

Just got a brand new T61P. It has very new hardware and doesn't work perfectly with feisty. If someone actually succeeds in installing feisty on one of these laptops (hard because of bug 106864 or bug 129817), they'll be greeted by a host of non-functioning hardware (naturally due to the hardware being more recent than feisty). This report is about the sound hardware (Device: 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller).

The titular driver is found and loaded, gnome-volume-control and mixer_applet2 both find the mixers, the keyboard volume controls appear to function (they cause the volume slider to pop up and move up and down). Both Totem and aplay think they're playing the "ubuntu Sax.ogg" file, but no sound comes out, even when all the levels are maxed out.

burner@phoenix:~$ amixer
Simple mixer control 'Master',0
  Capabilities: pvolume
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 39
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 39 [100%] [0.00dB]
  Front Right: Playback 39 [100%] [0.00dB]
Simple mixer control 'PCM',0
  Capabilities: pvolume
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 255
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 255 [100%] [0.00dB]
  Front Right: Playback 255 [100%] [0.00dB]

lspci info:

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
        Subsystem: Lenovo Unknown device 20ac
        Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
        Interrupt: pin B routed to IRQ 21
        Region 0: Memory at fe220000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>

[Michael R. Head (burner)]

Upgraded to 2.6.22 and the problem remains.

[Michael R. Head (burner)]

According to http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installing_Ubuntu_7.04_%28Feisty_Fawn%29_on_a_ThinkPad_T61 A very new Alsa (or recent patches) is needed to support this hardware.

[Michael R. Head (burner)]

I have found a (bizarre) workaround. According to http://www.klabs.be/~fpiat/linux/debian/Etch_on_Thinkpad_T61.html , there's something funky in the driver, but if you do this

$ sudo python
Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, Aug 17 2007, 18:40:36)
[GCC 4.1.3 20070812 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.2-15ubuntu2)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>
>>> KIOCSOUND = 0x4B2F
>>>
>>> import fcntl, sys
>>>
>>> import time
>>> while(True):
... fd = open("/dev/console")
... fcntl.ioctl(fd, KIOCSOUND, 500)
... fd.close()
... time.sleep(5)
...

sound will actually work. There must be a way to use /sys or /proc to do the same thing, but this does work. (of course you can put the program in a file and run it, but I felt more comfortable typing in something that was going to need sudo access).

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Could you please add the output requested in the Reporting Sound Bugs section of https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DebuggingSoundProblems as separate attachments? Thanks in advance.

[Michael R. Head (burner)]

But yeah, the problem is that the drivers need to be updated for the latest ICH8 hardware.

[Michael R. Head (burner)]

Here's what's mentioned on the Etch on a T61 site:
Device is a : " Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller" PCI 8086:284b Which uses Intel's "high definition audio" module : snd-hda-intel Eventhough the module is loaded, the laptop produces no sound.

    Andrew Clunis sent me an email :It turns out that the problem lies with the mixer. While there isn't aproper patch, I determined that constantly emitting a tone from the PCspeaker will at least allow the speakers to work (line-out will notwork, unfortunately). Read the comments in the attachment for more info. :) t61_audio_hack.py

Inside the python script, this is mentioned:

# Andrew Clunis <email address hidden>

# Stupid userspace workaround for intel-hda breakage in kernels (at least)
# 2.6.20 to 2.6.22 on the ThinkPad T61. Breakage in the driver causes all
# audio out to be permanently muted.

# I noticed, however, that I could hear perhaps 250 ms worth of music
# whenever the PC speaker was sounded (although, conveniently, not the tone
# itself).

# Just run this program as root and your speakers (but not microphone or
# earphone jacks) will magically work.

[Alvin (alvind)]

There is a related bug for Gutsy: #122560
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.22/+bug/122560

[Michael R. Head (burner)]

re-confirmed in linux-image-2.6.22-10-generic 2.6.22-10.30

The python hack is still needed to get sound to output.

[SteveSims (stevenasims)]

Would anyone mind explaining how to run this python workaround?

For Linux's credit, I installed Windows XP and sound didn't work either; neither did the wireless nor wired connections, the second of which works perfectly in Gutsy. How can I download Windows drivers with no internet :-p?

[Michael R. Head (burner)]

Step 1: download t61_audio_hack.py (to your Desktop)
Step 2: Press Alt-F2
Step 3: type the following into the dialog: gksudo "python Desktop/t61_audio_hack.py"
Step 4: press the "Run" button. (alternatively, check on the "Run in terminal" option if you like before pressing "Run")

[Michael R. Head (burner)]

Reconfirmed with a Tribe 5 Live CD.

[josecc (josecc)]

No sound in Dell inspiron 1420 / Gusty tribe 5

2.6.22-10-generic

No sound in a speakers. how to fix it ?

t61_audio_hack.py hack no works :(

Thanks

[Joseph Wakeling (webdrake)]

Same problem occurs on Thinkpad R61 (unsurprising since I believe it's the same chipset).

I'm writing this from a Kubuntu Gutsy Tribe 5 LiveCD but results are similar under Ubuntu 7.04. Some observations:

Volume control---only two sliders are visible in Output, "Master" and "PCM". There are no others nor tabs for input etc.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ cat /proc/asound/cards
 0 [Intel ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
                      HDA Intel at 0xfe020000 irq 21

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ aplay --list-devices
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: HDA Generic [HDA Generic]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ more /proc/asound/oss/sndstat
Sound Driver:3.8.1a-980706 (ALSA v1.0.14 emulation code)
Kernel: Linux ubuntu 2.6.22-10-generic #1 SMP Wed Aug 22 08:11:52 GMT 2007 i686
Config options: 0

Installed drivers:
Type 10: ALSA emulation

Card config:
HDA Intel at 0xfe020000 irq 21

Audio devices:
0: HDA Generic (DUPLEX)

Synth devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG

Midi devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG

Timers:
31: system timer

Mixers:
0: Analog Devices ID 1984

[Joseph Wakeling (webdrake)]

Further to above, on the R61, output of lspci -v :

[Joseph Wakeling (webdrake)]

... and the python hack doesn't work on Feisty, on the R61.

[Joseph Wakeling (webdrake)]

Whoops, correct that. It _does_ work but only in the internal speakers (not headphones or external speakers).

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

This bug does not meet the criteria for a stable release update and is being marked as Won't Fix for this particular version of the kernel. You can learn more about the stable release update process at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates .

[drumn (kurz-net-control)]

The bug which is discussed on this page is solved by the new kernel 2.6.23. The module snd_hda_intel is now included. Sound is working fine for now also headphones or external speakers. A very nice (german) article could be read on http://www.heise.de/open/artikel/96001. I'm using a T61 since last week and had a very hard fight getting the hardware work and I've still probs with my Hotkeys.

[merowinger (merowinger09)]

for all of you with no sound and a 2.6.22 kernel:
pressing one of the volume control button left of the thinkvantage button worked for me!
you can adjust your volume with alsamixer as long as you want you wont get sound until you press one of those buttons.
took me a long time to find out

[smyrman (smyrman)]

thinkvantage?? is this physical buttons, or software?

2007/10/27, merowinger <email address hidden>:
>
> *** This bug is a duplicate of bug 130559 ***
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/130559
>
> for all of you with no sound and a 2.6.22 kernel:
> pressing one of the volume control button left of the thinkvantage button
> worked for me!
> you can adjust your volume with alsamixer as long as you want you wont get
> sound until you press one of those buttons.
> took me a long time to find out
>
> --
> Sound does not work in feisty or gutsy on a new T61P (snd_hda_intel)
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/133105
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug (via bug 130559).
>

[cmnorton (octopusgrabbus)]

Does the python hack help me if I'm getting

audiotestsrc wave=sine freq=512 ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! gconfaudiosink profile=chat: no element "gconfaudiosink".
could not open this resource for writing.

Is there an upgrade I can get for my kernel?
 2.6.22-14-generic #1 SMP Tue Feb 12 07:42:25 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

Thanks.
cmn

[smyrman (smyrman)]

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