Volume Issues

[alloneword]

OK, I just installed 10.1 OE (installed over 10.1 CE (re formated /

partition)

 

I had this same error in CE, and I never fixed, I just got around it so I

could live with it.

 

The problem is, NO mixer will affect my PCM volume, ie. I can adjust the

master, others and sound levels play, but, the PCM slider does NOTHING.

OK, I have tried:

aumix

alsamixer

alsamixergui

kmix

the gnome mixer

gkrellm

 

My sound card is a CM8738 (using the snd-cmipci module). Using the default

alsa server and stuff (what ever was installed when I installed 10.1 OE)

I havn't installed any extra sound stuff at all.

 

gkrellm's mixer is set to /dev/mixer

 

When I run xmms (used to just have sound playing while I tried stuff, but

it is the same for EVERY program that makes sound) and I select esd, sound

plays fine, but the mixers (mentioned above) make no affect on the volume

of the play back.

I've tried going through esd, oss, alsa, and the mixers don't work with

any of them.

 

I've gone through the trouble shooting thing in the snd stuff in mcc.

 

It all looked fine. there were lots of modules loaded in lsmod, snd-STUFF

 

What was interesting there was nothing inside /etc/modules.conf but the

modules had been loaded, so I am not worried about that.

 

Google isn't helping much :(

 

Any ideas?? Help please :)

 

Cheers

[devries]

Just a wild guess: http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php?page=cmipci

 

It says here there are 2 independent PCM channels. Do you have 2 jacks-out on your soundcard? If you do try switching the jack.

 

Good luck.

 

Else it's a bug.

[alloneword]

I have many jacks on my card :)

 

I JUST managed to fix it

 

I muted ALL of the spdif channels in alsamixer.

 

Thanks

 

[devries]

From my earlier link:

 

The CM8x38 provides the excellent SPDIF capability with very chip price (yes, that's the reason I bought the card :)

 

The SPDIF playback and capture are done via the third PCM device (hw:0,2). Usually this is assigned to the PCM device "spdif". The available rates are 44100 and 48000Hz. For playback with aplay, you can do:

 

% aplay -Dhw:0,2 foo.wav

or

% aplay -Dspdif foo.wav

 

So far, only S16LE format is supported. Still no 24bit. Sorry, not enough info for this.

 

The playback and capture over SPDIF use normal DAC and ADC, respectively, so you cannot playback both analog and digital streams simultaneously.

 

To enable SPDIF output, you need to turn on "IEC958 Output Switch" control via mixer or alsactl. Then you'll see the red light on from the card so you know that's working obviously :) The SPDIF input is always enabled, so you can hear SPDIF input data from line-out with "IEC958 In Monitor" switch at any time (see below).

 

You can play via SPDIF even with the first device (hw:0,0), but SPDIF is enabled only when the proper format (S16LE), sample rate (441100 or 48000) and channels (2) are used. Otherwise it's turned off. (Also don't forget to turn on "IEC958 Output Switch", too.)

 

Additionally there are relevant control switches:

 

"IEC958 Mix Analog" - Mix analog PCM playback and FM-OPL/3 streams and

output through SPDIF.  This switch appears only on old chip

models (CM8738 033 and 037).

Note: without this control you can output PCM to SPDIF.

This is "mixing" of streams, so e.g. it's not for AC3 output

(see the next section).

 

"IEC958 In Select" - Select SPDIF input, the internal CD-in (false)

and the external input (true).  This switch appears only on

the chip models 039 or later.

 

"IEC958 Loop" - SPDIF input data is loop back into SPDIF

output (aka bypass)

 

"IEC958 Copyright" - Set the copyright bit.

 

"IEC958 5V" - Select 0.5V (coax) or 5V (optical) interface.

On some cards this doesn't work and you need to change the

configuration with hardware dip-switch.

 

"IEC958 In Monitor" - SPDIF input is routed to DAC.

 

"IEC958 In Phase Inverse" - Set SPDIF input format as inverse.

[FIXME: this doesn't work on all chips..]

 

"IEC958 In Valid"  - Set input validity flag detection.

 

Note: When "PCM Playback Switch" is on, you'll hear the digital output stream through analog line-out.

 

Sounds logical. The PCM channel in the mixers changed the analog line-out volume :)