Audigy 4 and 2009.1[solved]

[Cosmin Chifan]

I write here the solution it may be help someone, the problem is that I have Audigy 4 soundcard with 5.1 system logitech x530 and after install 2009.1 (dvd free) I noticed that I have no sound (although I have before in 2008,2008.1,2009.0 ,win xp and worked with no problem); after I googleit and I lost one day I finally found a solution: in Kmix unmute Audugy Analog/Digital Output Jack (now u have sound but is 3.1 and not 5.1) and mute IEC958 Optical Raw , and that's all, u have sound and it is 5.1

[Rick_Kunath]

Thanks so much for posting this solution.

I have yet to upgrade the machines that have Audigy 4 cards on them. But this solution also works on the Audigy 2 card too.

Thanks again.

[Robert Reed_0]

Works a treat with SB Audigy 4, I take my sound quite seriously!
Thank you very much

[octopus66]

Are you sure it works? My external device takes the signal and tells if it is multi channel. AC3 is not passed through, quite sure it is only prologic PCM signal that is output.

2008.1 was able to output real raw. External decoder displays the number of channels and always say PCM in 2009.1. If AC3 it says digital and the 3/2 or 2/0 for main/surround channels being sent.

The output IEC958 optical raw is mislabeled, it only activates digital PCM output from the gstreamer backend of pulse audio.

If anyone finds the control to send multi channel audio to digital out, please post here. I suspect it has not been implemented yet.

One way to check what is going out is to use iecset to check
$ iecset
Mode: consumer
Data: audio
Rate: 48000 Hz
Copyright: permitted
Emphasis: none
Category: PCM coder
Original: original
Clock: 1000 ppm

As you can see when a 5.1 source is playing there has been a conversion to PCM.

Another check is desktop sounds can still be heard while playing the 5.1 source.

Under 2008.1 with Kaffeine outputting 5.1, changed to Data: non-audio was shown.

In 2009.1 "iecset pro off audio off" results in no sound at all as there is no stream from pulse audio or gstreamer. Not sure which is the problem.

[octopus66]

For anyone who, has no sound digital out and thinks it should work.

PulseAudio can select data mode for the SPDIF port, which will result in no sound as the pass through is not supported and iecset may not be allowed by PulseAudio to coonect to the port.

In Mandriva control centre > Hardware > sound configuration, deselect Enable PluseAudio, exit, cancel logout, then go back in and enable it. This will restore audio mode.

Note, restarting your computer may have no effect.

[Ahmad_Samir]

@octopus66: could file a bug report at https://qa.mandriva.com/index.cgi outlining this workaround? Thanks.

[Rick_Kunath]

I was hoping that fix would have worked to get Kmixer to remember the digital raw mute check box. But it never does.

I can't seem to figure out where that is stored and I've tried everything.

SOund works now after checking it, but it won't stay across reboots.

[Ahmad_Samir]

Did you try toggling it using alsamixer, in terminal:

[Rick_Kunath]

I did try that, and muted the digital raw output in alsamixer from the console.

That held across KDE logouts, but after a reboot, the digital raw checkbox is unchecked again. So something in the boot process is setting the digital output as active.

[Ahmad_Samir]

Did you try disabling pulseaudio?

[Rick_Kunath]

Yes. Didn't reboot between disabling it though to see if the settings were saved. I could try that.

It looks like the PA startup is setting the digital raw to on every time.

[Rick_Kunath]

I'm still trying to figure out how to get the digital raw to come up muted on a boot.

[Ahmad_Samir]

From terminal load:

[Rick_Kunath]

I believe this is the section I need:

Simple mixer control 'IEC958 Optical Raw',0
Capabilities: pswitch
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Mono:
Front Left: Playback [off]
Front Right: Playback [off]

This should be the IEC958 optical mute switch, which I need muted. It defaults to not muted, and thus no sound via the analog outputs of the card.

Killing and restarting pulseaudio always resets this switch to not muted and no sound, as does a reboot.

[Ahmad_Samir]

Does this toggle it (mute/unmute):

[Rick_Kunath]

Yes it does.

It changes state with each sending of that command.

I.e. if it's off, it goes on, if it's on it goes off.

You'd have to know the state to get it to force right. On a relog without reboot, the state is saved, but only on a reboot is the state always set to unmuted. Maybe if this was executed on a boot up, might set things right.

rc.local maybe?

[Ahmad_Samir]

Nah, toggle was just for testing it, we can use "mute", this way if it's already muted it'll do nothing.

You use kde4? if so do this as user (not root):

[Rick_Kunath]

I tried this and it works, sort of...

Apparently there is a timing issue. On a boot, the mute does not get set to on. But if I log out of KDE and back into KDE again (not rebooting), then the mute does get set.

So there must be something unsetting it during the boot/KDE load sequence.

I'm wondering if there might be another place to put this?

[Ahmad_Samir]

It's probably speedboot, it starts the display manager ASAP meanwhile some other processes continue to load in the background....

So let's make it sleep for a while before executing . Edit .kde4/Autostart/mute.sh and make it look like this:

[Rick_Kunath]

That did the trick!

Thanks so much.

I was able to back it off to 4 seconds delay. Not sure if I could go lower, but at 4 seconds the startup sound plays intact.

Thanks again.

[Ahmad_Samir]

Excellent! glad it's working.

[Cosmin Chifan]

at me the amixer show:
Simple mixer control 'Master',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right - Rear Left - Rear Right - Front Center - Woofer
Limits: Playback 0 - 65536
Mono:
Front Left: Playback 55898 [85%] [on]
Front Right: Playback 55898 [85%] [on]
Rear Left: Playback 55898 [85%] [on]
Rear Right: Playback 55898 [85%] [on]
Front Center: Playback 55898 [85%] [on]
Woofer: Playback 55898 [85%] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Capture',0
Capabilities: cvolume cvolume-joined cswitch cswitch-joined
Capture channels: Mono
Limits: Capture 0 - 65536
Mono: Capture 57891 [88%] [on]

wher to find IEC958 Optical Raw?

L.E.: i found the problem, I have a video card HD4850(with hdmi builtin) and a sound card audigy 4, amixer after reboot switch from device sound 0 or 1, now I want to figure how disable ati, before amixer to see it...
L.E.no2: resolved
First I blacklisted the driver for ati hdmi(snd_hda_intel) - in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-mdv I add the line blacklist snd_hda_intel ,beware to le a empty line to the end of file
Two: I make a script ( mute.sh):
#!/bin/bash
sleep 10
amixer -c 0 set 'IEC958 Optical Raw' mute

and in konsole I execute:
chmod ug+x mute.sh
now all it's almost perfect...

[lxtwin]

Hi there

I had a problem where only the front speakers worked, I found by editing /etc/pulse/daemon.conf and adding this fixed my problem:

default-channel-map = front-left,front-right,rear-left,rear-right
default-sample-channels = 6

then after a reboot it all 4 speakers worked......

hope this helps someone.

lxtwin

[Ahmad Samir]

@lxtwin, did you try configuring this from the open Menu> sound & video> pulseaudio volume control > Configuration tab, by selecting an appropriate profile for your card? anyway whatever works for you

[lxtwin]

Hi Ahmad,

I did not try the it from the menu, but when I did fails with a connection refused message.

Thanks anyway.