no sound with VT1708/A in 11.04

[Dennis New]

Here's possibly some additional info:
http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=e2e77cee03837242aa40575d206bcd8315e68aef

The hardware seems to be recognized properly(?), but no sound is outputted! (I believe it used to work a bit before with earlier ubuntu versions, except it would quickly crash pulseaudio. Now pulseaudio doesn't crash, but nor is there any sound.)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: pulseaudio 1:0.9.22+stable-queue-24-g67d18-0ubuntu3.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-11.47-generic 2.6.38.8
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-11-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.23.
Architecture: i386
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: VT82xx [HDA VIA VT82xx], device 0: VT1708B Analog [VT1708B Analog]
   Subdevices: 2/2
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
   Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: nimesh 1855 F.... pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'VT82xx'/'HDA VIA VT82xx at 0xfebfc000 irq 17'
   Mixer name : 'VIA VT1708B 8-Ch'
   Components : 'HDA:1106e721,10191349,00100100'
   Controls : 27
   Simple ctrls : 15
Date: Thu Jul 28 22:53:07 2011
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_CA:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2011-07-24 (4 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 02/21/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 080014
dmi.board.asset.tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.board.name: P53G
dmi.board.vendor: PCCHIPS
dmi.board.version: 1.0
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: 0123ABC
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: PCCHIPS
dmi.chassis.version: 1.0
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr080014:bd02/21/2008:svnPCCHIPS:pnP53G:pvr1.0:rvnPCCHIPS:rnP53G:rvr1.0:cvnPCCHIPS:ct3:cvr1.0:
dmi.product.name: P53G
dmi.product.version: 1.0
dmi.sys.vendor: PCCHIPS

[Dennis New (dennisn)]

I was playing around with various module load-time parameters (from /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf) and possibly some kernel load-time arguments (from /boot/grub/menu.lst)... and magically (I swear!) I got it to work after rebooting, once -- I believe (although I can't reproduce it!!?) it happened with nor additional kernel args, and no module parameters. I was only able to get it to output with the "Analog" device that was listed in the Sound configurator -- no output with the "Digital" device.

But, as I mentioned, I was not able to get it to work again after I rebooted. Nevertheless, it shows that it IS possible! It also sounds eerily reminiscent with our earlier problems, where it would magically work for a while, then crash.

Help!?

(I won't even bother to whine about how sound was working nicely years ago :s. (Mainly because I am not able to debug in greater detail to find out why it worked before, and what exactly broke it.))

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

You shouldn't need to make any hacks if you use
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Audio/InstallingLinuxAlsaDriverModules.

[Dennis New (dennisn)]

@Daniel, that repo you mentioned only seems to have drivers up to kernel 2.6.38-10 ... although I'm using 2.6.38-11 :s

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 11.04 (natty) reached end-of-life on October 28, 2012.

See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

We appreciate that this bug may be old and you might not be interested in discussing it any more. But if you are then please upgrade to the latest Ubuntu version and re-test.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for pulseaudio (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]