lawsonrc Posted May 18, 2004 Report Share Posted May 18, 2004 (edited) The Toshiba 5000 series were the very first ultimate media laptops. One feature included is the built-in the Harmon Kardon speakers with a Subwoofer. On Windows XP, the sound is full, loud, and three dimensional. This was also the case with Mandrake9.0, and 9.1. On my Toshiba 5005-S507, I have now Mandrake 9.2 and 10 OE Powerpak. In Mandrake 9.2, there was a kernel patch to get ACPI to work which sound needed. In Mandrake 10 OE, I had to download kernel 2.6.6 to get ACPI and sound to work. Yet in BOTH, I get sound, but it is rather low...it does not have the loudness and wellrounded full sound as before. I have used kmix to make sure the volumes were raised appropriately to maximum. The machine is Legacy Free Bios (which means you can't get into the Bios to change anything). All help is greatly appreciateed. Many thanks! Richard Edited May 18, 2004 by lawsonrc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonMage Posted May 19, 2004 Report Share Posted May 19, 2004 Well.. I don't know about you, but don't Toshiba 5000 series have external volume control. Mine does. Anyway, sometimes kmix doesn't show all the volume controls. Use aumix to see if all the necessary volumes (master volume and PCM at least) are turned up. Also the application you are using may have their own separate volume control, turn it up too. In my case, usually linux require at least 75-80% level to be equal to Windows 50 %. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lawsonrc Posted May 19, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 19, 2004 Well.. I don't know about you, but don't Toshiba 5000 series have external volume control. Mine does. Anyway, sometimes kmix doesn't show all the volume controls. Use aumix to see if all the necessary volumes (master volume and PCM at least) are turned up. Also the application you are using may have their own separate volume control, turn it up too. In my case, usually linux require at least 75-80% level to be equal to Windows 50 %. Yes, I have the habit of always using the volume control on each laptop: on the 5005 it's located on the right behind the DVD drive (actually harder to find with the touch), and on the 5205 it's in the front right (much handier). I had to install aumix with urpmi, then under the "Balance" column, I moved the Volume from 50% to 97% and the PCM to 97%. I then played Frozen-Bubble and it's the same volume as before. And when I play a CD or a DVD, I do check volume controls to see if I can raise them and do so if needed, but it still makes no difference. Is there anything I'm still missing? Thanks, DragonMage, I appreciate it very much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonMage Posted May 20, 2004 Report Share Posted May 20, 2004 Hmm.. 97% and still sounds low? Now that is something strange. If that happens, then it is probably driver related. Have you try changing the sound driver from Alsa to OSS or vice versa and see if the sound problem still persist? Anyway, CD have their own volume level in both aumix and kmix, you should turn that thing up also. As for DVD, well.. playing movies (both VCDs and DVDs) in any kind of player makes low sound in my case too no matter where I am (my desktop or laptop). I have to push the volume up all the way to 90% and turn the external volume control up, too to listen to them. So it's not just you :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lawsonrc Posted May 20, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 20, 2004 Thanks very much DragonMage, Last night at our weekly HLUG workshop, Aaron E. got it working. We tested it with frozen-bubble and we got full, loud sound. In fact, it startled all the other people in the large workshop room, so we had to turn it down very quickly. Can you imagine a booming loud those Harmon Karmon speaker with Subwoofer on a LAPTOP can be in a large room? At home I didn't realize how loud they could actually be! Aaron went back into Kmix to solve it, I guess I was turning up the volume in Output and forgot to do it in Input, although I could've SWORN I did it there, too. So we got it solved in MDK 10 OE, now I'm about to do it at home in MDK9.2. I'm very grateful to all of you on this thread!!!! Thanks to you DragonMage especially since you have a Toshiba 5000 series laptop, too! I'm pretty close to adding Linux to my 5205-S703; since mine is in perfect condition, I've been too hesitant to add Linux to it. I'm in heaven with that laptop, so I use the 5005-S507 as my "Linux" laptop since it's the "lemon" with the lawsuit. Have a great Friday and weekend (although it's noon in Houston on Thursday, I suspect it's past midnight and now Friday where you live). Richard L. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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